Dr. Stephan Regenass, MD, graduated at the Medical Faculty of Basel University and received his training as a postdoctoral fellow in vascular biology in the department of pathology, University of Washington in Seattle with Russel Ross. After returning to Switzerland, he achieved board certification as laboratory specialist in immunology and genetics and is heading the diagnostic laboratory of the Clinics for Immunology of the University Hospital of Zurich. Stephan Regenass is president of the commission of laboratory diagnostics of SSAI, which engages in diagnostic laboratory topics including quality assurance, training of laboratory specialists and authoring diagnostic guidelines.

Professor Carlo Chizzolini, MD, obtained his MD degree in 1979 at the School of Medicine, University of Parma, Italy, where he specialized in Allergy and Clinical Immunology in 1983. In the following 10 years he was involved in a research program aiming at the development of a malaria vaccine in Geneva, Gabon, equatorial Africa, and at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, USA. Since April 1994 he is in the Division of Immunology and Allergy, Geneva University Hospital, where he cares for individuals suffering of systemic autoimmune diseases, particularly systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic vasculitis, and systemic sclerosis. He runs a research laboratory entitled: “Fibrosis and Inflammation” mostly involved in investigating the role of T cells and autoantibodies in inflammatory reactions leading to excessive fibrosis. He is the coordinator of the Swiss SLE cohort study and participates to international networks interested in autoimmune systemic disorders. He participates to the SSAI specialist board since 2008 and has entered the SSAI committee in 2011.

Professor Daniel E. Speiser, MD, is a clinician-scientist and a Member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, and leads the Clinical Tumor Immune-Biology Group and the Unit for Investigator-Initiated Oncology Studies at the University Hospital Lausanne, Switzerland. He performs clinical studies representing a step-by-step development towards more efficient cancer vaccines, with the aim to identify vaccine components contributing to protective T cell responses. Research of his group is focused on activation, differentiation and function of antigen specific human T cells, with special emphasis on ex vivo analyses of immune activatory and inhibitory pathways and their relation to parameters of cancer biology and inflammation. Daniel graduated in 1982 and received a Doctorate in Medicine in 1986 at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. He completed his clinical education in internal medicine, immunology and (hemato-)oncology. Then, he trained for five years in the laboratory of R.M. Zinkernagel, specializing in infectious and tumor immunity. Subsequently, he extended his experience to basic and clinical immunology and habilitated at the University of Geneva in 1995. During his career, he realized many R&D projects, for example by developing experimental immunotherapy in mouse models with naturally arising pancreatic tumors, with P.S. Ohashi and T.W. Mak at the Ontario Cancer Institute and the University of Toronto, Canada. Daniel promotes academic bio-medical progress at local, national and international levels. One of his major aims is to move clinical research up the value chain, which is definitely needed in Switzerland, and required for state-of-the-art education, development and optimal patient care at academic centers.

Professor Burkhard Ludewig, MD, is an Immunologist and acts currently as the head of the Medical Research Center and the Institute of Immunobiology at the Kantonsspital St. Gallen. My research interests are focused on the interaction of viruses with the innate and adaptive immune system and potential autoimmune sequelae resulting from viral infections. Furthermore, my laboratory has established translational approaches to develop novel vaccination methods and immunodiagnostic tools. I am affiliated with the VetSuisse faculty of the University of Zürich and hold the academic position of a Titularprofessor in the field of immunopathology. Further academic activities include teaching of biology students of the ETH Zürich and the University of Zürich in immunology, and supervising PhD students from the Life Science Zürich Graduate School in my laboratory.

I graduated in 1992 at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Free University (FU) Berlin, Germany, and received a Doctorate in Medicine in 1995 at the FU Berlin following a three year experimental work at the Robert-Koch Institute. Following two short postdoctoral positions at the Robert-Koch Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I joined the Institute of Experimental Immunology at the University of Zürich in 1997 as a recipient of the postdoctoral fellowship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. In 2001, I habilitated at the University of Zürich and accepted a position as head of the laboratory research unit at the Kantonsspital St. Gallen in 2002. Subsequently, I could help to found the Institute of Immunobiology and shape the Medical Research Center at our hospital. In 2001, I co-founded the bio-pharmaceutical company Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG, Mainz, and served a scientific advisor until 2008.