Category: BRCCH Board

Prof Primo Schär is the Vice-Director of Research and professor in the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel. He obtained his PhD from the University of Bern and did his postdoctoral work at both the University of Bern and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK). Prior to joining the University of Basel, Prof Schär was a research group leader at the Institute of Molecular Cancer Research at the University of Zürich.

Prof Schär’s group investigates biological processes that modulate genome plasticity; i.e., the stability of the genetic and epigenetic codes of cell identity. Their objective is to provide a thorough understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved and the consequences of their dysfunction for cell fate, transformation and cancer.

Prof Annette Oxenius is the Vice President for Research and a Professor for Immunology at the Department of Biology (D-BIOL) at ETH Zurich. The major emphasis of the research in the group of Annette Oxenius is the analysis of cellular immunity in acute and persistent viral infections. A first area of research focuses on the molecular, cellular and functional characterization of virus-specific T and B cell responses. A second area of research addresses the question of how T cells differentiate and diversify during immune responses. A third area investigates the mechanisms that regulate of T cell responses. 

Prof Urs Frey is the Medical Director and Chair of Paediatrics at University Children’s Hospital Basel (UKBB). He is also the Chairman of the National Steering Board for the Swiss Personalized Health Network. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Bern and a PhD in medical physics from the University of Leicester, UK, with subsequent specialisations in paediatrics and child and youth medicine and pulmonology. Most recently, before joining UKBB, Prof Frey was the Head of Department and Professor of Paediatric Pulmonology at the University Hospital of Bern.

His research interests include lung physiology, the epidemiology of lung growth and development, computational biology and mathematical modelling of complex diseases, with a particular focus on bronchial asthma and chronic lung disease of infancy, as well as other wheezing disorders in infants and preschool children.

Within the context of the BRCCH, Prof Frey sits on the BRCCH Board. He is also is a collaborator in the consortium "Alex".

Prof Eva Scheurer is Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at University of Basel, director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine Basel, full professor for Forensic Medicine at the Medical Faculty, and lecturer at the Faculty of Law of University Basel. She completed her medical doctorate in 1999 from the University of Bern and holds a diploma in physics, was director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Clinical-Forensic Imaging, Graz, Austria, and is certified as generally accredited and court-certified expert for forensic medicine in Austria. Since 2014, Scheurer has been a member of the Medical Coordination Committee, an overarching strategic body for the management of medical practice and research in Northwestern Switzerland, and since 2015 she has also been member of the Senate of the University of Basel.

Scheurer’s research focuses on adapting MR based methods, i.e. morphologic as well as quantitative MRI, for clinical-forensic cases like age estimation, strangulation, fracture dating, and the detection and dating of hematomas.

Prof Tanja Stadler is a professor of computational evolution. After her PhD at the Technical University of Munich she joined ETH Zürich as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Environmental Systems Sciences. In 2014 she moved to the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering as an Assistant Professor where she obtained tenure in 2017 and was promoted to a Full Professor in 2021. Her research addresses core questions in the life sciences through an evolutionary perspective, in particular in macroevolution, epidemiology, and developmental biology.

Katrien De Bock is Full Professor of Exercise and Health at ETH Zurich (Department of Health Sciences and Technology), Zurich, Switzerland. Her laboratory focuses its research on investigating how endothelial cells rewire their metabolism during angiogenesis and how endothelial cells metabolically communicate with other cell types in their microenvironment to maintain or establish organ homeostasis. Specific interest goes to deciphering mechanisms of blood vessel growth and endothelial metabolic crosstalk with immune cells.

Katrien De Bock received her Master in Rehabilitation sciences in 2002. During her PhD-period at the Research Center for Exercise and Health (University of Leuven – Belgium - Oct 2002 to Sept 2007), she focused her research on exercise physiology and studied metabolic plasticity in muscle during exercise in the fasted state. From Oct 2007 to June 2013, she conducted a postdoctoral training at the Vesalius Research Center, Flemish Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology (VIB - University of Leuven) under the mentorship of Prof. Peter Carmeliet. Here, she studied the link between angiogenesis and metabolism during development and disease. In Sept 2014, Katrien De Bock received an assistant professorship position at University of Leuven (Belgium), but almost immediately moved to Madrid (Spain) for an intensive research stay in the laboratory of Prof. Julian Aragonés where she studied the link between hypoxia and metabolism (02-08/ 2014). Soon thereafter, she decided to take up a professorship at ETH in Zürich (Oct 2015) where she currently holds a chair in Exercise and Health.