Professor Federica Sallusto, PhD, received her university degree as Doctor in Biology in 1988 from the University “La Sapienza”, Rome. She worked at the Department of Immunology, Italian National Institute of Health and at the Basel Institute for Immunology. Since 2000 she is group leader at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Bellinzona, Switzerland. Federica Sallusto has been working in the field of human dendritic cell and Tlymphocyte cell biology. She has described a method to generate immature dendritic cells from human monocytes, which is now widely used for therapeutic vaccination. She has studied human T helper cell differentiation focusing in particular on the relationship between migratory capacity and effector functions. This work led to the discovery that Th1 and Th2 cells express distinct sets of chemokine receptors and to the identification of central and effector subsets of memory T cells. In 1999 she received the Pharmacia Allergy Research Foundation Award. Federica Sallusto is SSAI president for the period 2013-2015.

Professor Peter Schmid-Grendelmeier, MD, graduated at the Universities of Fribourg and Zurich in 1985. After a broad residency in various disciplines he became a board certified specialist for allergology and clinical immunology and also dermatology at the university hospital of Zurich. He then spent two years performing experimental and clinical research on recombinant allergens at the Swiss Institute for Allergy and Asthma SIAF Davos. Since 2003 he has become associate professor and head of the Allergy unit of the University Hospital of Zurich. His research focuses on epidemiological aspects and microbial and enviromental effects in pollinosis and atopic dermatitis. Other focus are the improvement of eudcation and treatment in allergic diseases, mastocytosis and hereditary angioedema. Finally, having worked several years in Latin America and eastern Africa, he is involved in several studies investigating allergic diseases in tropical areas. Besides other duties, Peter Schmid-Grendelmeier is past-president of the specialists commission FK SSAI and chair of the task force for the European Knowledge test in Allergy and Clinical Immunology of the EAACI. Peter Schmid-Grendelmeier is president elect of SSAI for the period 2013-2015.

Professor Philippe Eigenmann, MD, is a pediatrician and allergist trained in Switzerland and in the USA (Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore). He is currently head of Pediatric Allergy at the University Hospital of Geneva Switzerland. His main focus of research is food allergy with several ongoing studies, both clinical and in the laboratory. He is currently section editor in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology and in the Editorial Board of Allergy. In addition to his scientific activity, he has been the chair of the European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) section on Pediatrics from 2003 to 2007, and was member of the EAACI Executive Committee (2009-2013). Prof. Eigenmann was chair of the EAACI and SSAI annual meeting 2012 in Geneva. He is also secretary of the EAACI-Clemens von Pirquet Foundation, a European foundation promoting research and education in pediatric allergy and immunology. Within the activity of the Foundation, he coordinates iPAC, the international pediatric allergy and asthma consortium. Philippe Eigenmann is the president past of SSAI for the period 2013-2015.

Professor Carlo Chizzolini, MD, is currently Senior consultant in Clinical Immunology and Allergy of the Internal Medicine Department, University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland.  He graduated in 1979 in the University of Parma, Italy where it trained in Internal Medicine and specialized in Clinical Immunology. For ten years thereafter, he was involved in a malaria vaccine program working in Geneva, Gabon (West Equatorial Africa) and at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia (USA). Since 1994 he is in Geneva where it attends patients affected by systemic autoimmune disorders. He is Chairman of the Swiss SLE Cohort Study (SSCS) and member of the EUSTAR and EUVAS European organizations interested in systemic sclerosis and systemic vasculitis.  He is leader of the Fibrosis and inflammation research group and has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed original articles.  He teaches to the students of the Medical School in Geneva. He is member of several international medical societies. He is member of SSAI since 1997, member of the Specialists Commission FK since 2009 and FK president since April 2013.

Dr. Louis-François Debétaz, MD, received his degree at the University of Lausanne in 1985 and did his residency in surgery, pediatrics and mostly internal medicine in various hospitals in Switzerland. He received the FMH titel of specialist in internal medicine before training in allergy and clinical immunology at the CHUV in Lausanne, where he received the FMH titel for this specialty in 1997. He received in 1998 the price of the medical faculty of Lausanne for his thesis on St-Jude’s prosthetic valves. Since 1997, he works as a private practitioner in Lausanne and is a member of the Groupement Vaudois des Allergologues et Immunologues Clinique since 1999. He took the presidency of this association for one year in 2005. He joined the the specialists commission FK in 2004, was president from March 2011-April 2013 und is now president past for the period 2013-2015. He remains president of the commission professional politics and is a member of the SSAI commission for postgraduate education and for professional politics.

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.

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.

Dr. Madeleine Bauer, MD, got her diploma from the medical faculty oft he university in Bern in 1980.

Medical theses 1983. FMH title for Internal Medicine, Allergology and Clinical Immunology in 1991. Residencies in Internal Medicine, Oncology and Anesthesiology and afterwards training in Allergology and Clinical Immunology at the Inselspital and Spital Ziegler Bern.

Since 1994 private practice in Olten, together with a rheumatologist.

She is member of the Committee since April 2013, member of the Specialits Commission FK since 2005, the Commission Politics Professianal CPP and the FBWBK since 2007, responsible for CME.

Dr. Ingmar Heijnen is member of the Committee and president of the CLD Commission Laboratory Diagnostics since April 2013.