Category: Strategic Scientific Advisory Board

Prof Marcel Tanner is President of the Swiss Academy of Arts and Sciences and a board member of Fondation Botnar. He is Director Emeritus of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) and also a Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Medical Parasitology at the University of Basel. His research interests include the fields of global health, epidemiology, health systems, infectious diseases and public health. Over the course of his research career, he has lived and worked extensively in Africa and Asia. He headed the Tropical Institute in Ifakara, Tanzania, which eventually grew into the Ifakara Health Institute. Among his notable work, Prof Tanner was instrumental in the development of malaria vaccines. He also implemented large programmes in the field of health planning and the training of health workers on behalf of the Swiss and Tanzanian governments. He is the author of over 700 publications, 51 book chapters and numerous reports for governments and international organizations. He obtained his PhD in medical biology from the University of Basel and a master’s in public health from the University of London, UK.

Elsbeth Müller is the former CEO of UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) Switzerland. During her tenure at UNICEF, she championed children’s rights in Switzerland, oversaw the certification of many Swiss cities as “child-friendly communities” and was involved in numerous international projects for the benefit of children’s health and well-being. She is also a board member of Fondation Botnar.

Photo: Fondation Botnar

Prof Christopher B Forrest is Professor of Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is also the director of the Applied Clinical Research Center at CHOP. His research interests include global health, health information technology, comparative effectiveness research, delivery innovation and patient-centred medical homes. Prof Forrest serves as the principal investigator of PEDSnet, a national consortium of children’s hospitals (>7 million children) in the USA, which conducts patient-centred outcomes research among children and youth. He is Chair of the Research Committee for PCORnet, a national clinical research network supported by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute in the USA. He also chairs the Steering Committee for PEPR, a National Institutes of Health programme which evaluates patient-reported outcome measures for children with chronic conditions. He obtained his MD from the Boston University School of Medicine and his PhD in health policy and management from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in the USA.

Prof Edina Sinanovic is a professor and Head of the Health Economics Division at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her academic training is in economics and health economics and she has worked on the economic evaluation of health care interventions, economic considerations in vaccination and scaling up health interventions since 1997. Prof Sinanovic’s current research focuses on evaluating the cost-effectiveness of alternative diagnostic and treatment interventions for TB, HIV and cancer. She is involved in a wide range of research activities, often in collaboration with other national and international research groups, including the Global Health Cost Consortium. Prof Sinanovic publishes widely in high-impact journals and her work has directly influenced government policy. In addition, she is an executive member of the Pharmaceutical & Technology Clinical Management Association (PTCMA) of South Africa, with a focus on research and education. She has also served as a member of the WHO Immunization and Vaccines Related Implementation Research Advisory Committee.

Prof Melody Swartz is the William B. Ogden Professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, USA, where she holds a joint appointment in the Ben May Department for Cancer Research. Trained as a bioengineer, Prof Swartz uses quantitative approaches in immunobiology and physiology, including biotransport and biomechanics, in order to develop a deeper understanding of how the lymphatic system regulates immunity in homeostasis and disease, particularly in cancer and chronic inflammation. Her lab applies this knowledge to developing novel immunotherapeutic approaches in cancer. She obtained her PhD in chemical engineering from MIT and did postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, USA. She then held academic appointments at Northwestern University, USA, and then at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), where she also served as Director of the Institute of Bioengineering. Among her many honours, Prof Swartz was elected to the American National Academy of Medicine in 2020 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2012.

Profile Photo Credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Prof Erwin Böttinger holds dual academic appointments as Professor of Digital Health – Personalized Medicine at the Hasso Plattner Institute and the University of Potsdam, Germany, and Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, USA. He serves as the founding Director of the Digital Health Center at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam and as a founding Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai in New York City. He received his MD from the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany and continued his postgraduate training in the USA at Harvard Medical School and the National Cancer Institute, followed by academic appointments at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Charité Universitätsmedizin hospital in Berlin, Germany. Prof Böttinger’s interdisciplinary research in digital health and personalized medicine combines digital technologies with molecular and data sciences. He has published extensively and in high-impact journals and serves as a founder and advisor in the health sector.

Prof Margaret Gyapong joined the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ho, Ghana, where she is currently Director of the Institute of Health Research, in 2017. Prior to this, she was Deputy Director of Research and Development in the Ghana Health Service and Foundation Director of the Dodowa Health Research Centre. Prof Gyapong also holds professorial and adjunct professorial positions at the University of Health and Allied Sciences and Georgetown University in Washington DC, USA. She is interested in the socio-cultural aspects of tropical diseases, implementation research, maternal and child health and capacity building. She has a background in medical anthropology and cultural epidemiology, with a PhD from the University of Basel. She serves on several boards, task forces, steering committees and working groups for the World Health Organization, KEMRI/CDC Wellcome Trust, the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and Sight Savers International, to mention only a few.