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 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 Sven Panke is a professor of bioprocess engineering. After his PhD at ETH Zurich, he worked for two years in the biocatalysis group of the chemical company DSM (Geleen, The Netherlands). He returned to ETH in 2001 as an assistant professor and moved in 2008 to the newly founded Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich in Basel. His main research topics include biocatalyst engineering, high-throughput screening and synthetic biology. He is currently the Head of the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich.

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 William (Bill) Taylor was appointed to the position of Professor of Movement Biomechanics within the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH Zürich in 2012. After achieving his degree in Mechanical Engineering, he completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Bath, England in 1999 using finite element analysis to analyse the bone adaptation that occurs around hip prostheses. After spending a year at the Biomechanics Research Lab, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, Australia, he moved to Germany in 2001, where he led the research group “Functional Analysis” at the Julius Wolff Institute, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

As head of the Laboratory for Movement Biomechanics at ETH Zürich, his research now aims to provide new approaches for quantifying functional outcome in patients, both pre-operatively and after therapy. Through developing medical engineering concepts for evaluating joint stability and stiffness, as well as accurate and robust techniques for assessing motion patterns, his goal is to identify musculoskeletal deficits and movement pathologies at an early time point. Using these techniques to evaluate the differences between physiology and pathology, as well as functional status after therapy, his research further aims to complement clinical decision making by opening perspectives for targeting therapies towards patients who would gain most benefit. This research has led to a number of international awards and its impact has also been reflected in over 220 internationally peer-reviewed journal contributions.