Board of Directors

EuroVacc Foundation is governed by the Board of Directors, which is composed of leading scientists in the fields of basic immunology and virology, molecular biology and molecular engineering, pre-clinical and clinical research. The president of the Board, Mr. Jean-Philippe Rochat is an attorney at Law and heads a law firm in Switzerland.

Jean-Philippe Rochat, President
Mariano Esteban
Jonathan Heeney
Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl
Peter Liljeström, foundation secretary
Giuseppe Pantaleo
Jonathan Weber, treasurer
Hans Wolf

Jean-Philippe Rochat

Jean-Philippe Rochat is the president of the EuroVacc Foundation. Since 1990 he is partner with the law firm Carrard & Partners, with experience in the field of business and commercial law. Jean-Philippe Rochat is a member of the Board of directors and chairman of several Swiss corporations in the field of industry, finance and trading. He is member of the Board of several foundations.

Mariano Esteban

Mariano Esteban is professor of CSIC and former Director of the National Centre of Biotechnology (1992-2003). He returned to Spain in 1992 after 22 years abroad, mostly in the USA, where he was professor of Biochemistry and Microbiology at the Health Science Center at Brooklyn, State University of New York. Mariano Esteban is an internationally-recognized scientist with a long experience in molecular basis of pathogenesis by infectious agents. In particular, his group has made important contributions in understanding the lifecycle of vaccinia virus and the mechanism of action of interferons. Mariano Esteban used this knowledge to develop vaccinia-vectors that are potential candidates against diseases like AIDS and malaria. His group pioneered a prime/boost approach that is gaining acceptance as an immunization protocol against AIDS, malaria and leishmaniasis, and is making significant contributions in the biology and application of the attenuated poxvirus vectors MVA and NYVAC as vaccine candidates against infectious diseases. Prof. Esteban is a Member of the Royal Academy of Pharmacy in Spain.

Jonathan Heeney

Jonathan Heeney is Professor of Comparative Pathology at the University of Cambridge. His work bridges both Veterinary and Human medicine, infectious diseases and oncology. He has over 20 years of experience working with both academia and industry to navigate vaccine candidates through preclinical development to clinical trial. He has a long established track record of management of large international consortia. His new laboratory in Cambridge studies cross-species transmissions of viral diseases and the mechanisms of immunity in new and established hosts. His multi-discipline research team has developed new technologies for the detection and monitoring of viruses, and the characterization of new and novel pathogens. Jonathan Heeney has made a number of key contributions to AIDS vaccine development including defining the central role of T-helper responses in vaccine induced immunity, in demonstrating viral vaccine protection from cell-associated challenge and the role of chemokine responses in protective immunity. He has a comparative approach to vaccine development with the establishment of clinically definable endpoints early in the preclinical evaluation process. Jonathan Heeney pioneered the use of immune correlates in rational vaccine development and is the founder of an international series of meetings on correlates of protective immunity to HIV/AIDS.

Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl

Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl is emeritus Professor at the University of Lausanne, scientific consultant at the Service of Immunology and Allergy of the University Hospital in Lausanne, and a member of the European Molecular Biology organization (EMBO). He is the Co-Scientific Founder of OraVax, now Acambis, a vaccine producing company. Jean-Pierre Kraehenbuhl became a central figure in mucosal immunity and mucosal vaccination, making significant contributions in elucidating the mechanisms of antigen and vaccine sampling in the gut. He demonstrated how microbial components trigger epithelial chemokine responses, that link innate and adaptive immunity and also has identified novel mucosal adjuvants. Presently Jean-Pierre Kraenhenbuhl is the CEO of the Health Sciences e-Training (HSeT) Foundation. Within HSeT he is the project leader of web-based learning and training programs related to immunology, oncology, vaccinology, and co-leader of OCTAVE, the Online Collaborative Training of AIDS Vaccine Evaluation.

Peter Liljeström

Peter Liljeström is professor at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. He is also head of the Department of Vaccine Research at the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI) and director of the SMI Immunology and Vaccinology Centre (SIVAC). He is a member of the Swedish Federal Reference Group on Vaccination. Dr Liljeström has coordinated five EU research networks and has been a member of the WHO Steering committees for Flavivirus Vaccines and New Vaccines as well as the scientific committee of the European Society for Gene and Cell Therapy. Peter Liljeström is an internationally recognized scientist and has made significant contributions in the fields of molecular virology and virus host interactions. Presently he is involved in evaluation of different vaccination modalities and analysis of mechanisms underlying immune correlates of protection. Peter Liljeström has developed the alphavirus vector platform, which is widely used both as expression system and as a basis for recombinant vaccines.

Giuseppe Pantaleo

Giuseppe Pantaleo is Professor of medicine and Chief of the Division of Immunology and Allergy as well as Chief of the Laboratory of AIDS Immuno-pathogenesis at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He is also the Executive Director of the Swiss Vaccine Research Institute (SVRI) located in Lausanne, Switzerland. During the past fifteen years, Giuseppe Pantaleo’s research has been focused on the delineation of the immuno-pathogenesis of HIV infection. His research activities includes, but is not limited, to human T cell cloning, human T cell phenotypic and functional analysis, T cell activation, differentiation and memory, immuno-pathogenesis of HIV infection, HIV distribution in different anatomic compartments, antiretroviral therapy, immune reconstitution after antiretroviral therapy and immune-based therapeutic strategies. Furthermore, since 1998, he has been one of the major contributors to the development of a HIV research vaccine project using poxviruses as platform. Since 2005, he is the PI of a large vaccine consortium, i.e. Poxvirus T-Cell Vaccine Discovery Consortium (PTVDC) funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Giuseppe Pantaleo is the author and co-author of more than 230 publications in international scientific journals. He has been honoured with the following prizes: Cloetta-Award in Basic and Clinical Experimental Medicine (2000), Pfizer Research Prize in Clinical Research in Infectious Diseases (1999), National Institutes of Health NIH Director’s Award (1996), Academia dei Lincei – Award in Basic and Clinical Virology (Guido Lenghi and Flaviano Magrassi Foundation) (1996), Public Health Service Special Achievement (1995), National Institutes of Health Award of Merit (1993).

Jonathan Weber

Jonathan Weber is director of Research, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare Trust; as well as consultant physician in infectious diseases. He trained in Cambridge and in 1991, established a retroviral research department at Imperial College London, endowed by the Jefferiss Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which houses a dedicated clinical research facility for HIV and HTLV patients. The department was heavily involved in the clinical development of combination antiretroviral therapy for the treatment of HIV infection from 1991-96. He was principal investigator for the phase I trials of lamivudine and saquinavir and virologist for the Delta trial (UK, France, The Netherlands), which was the first to show a reversal of HIV natural history through combination therapy in 1994. Following licensure of triple therapy with the spectacular effects on HIV natural history, the department turned to studying the prevention of HIV infection. Prof Weber is the Chair of the Microbicides Development Programme 2001-2009, an MRC/DfID funded, £43m project to develop PRO2000 as a vaginal microbicide. The pivotal licensure study in 10,000 women volunteers in South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda will report at the end of 2009. He is clinical lead for the EuroVacc Foundation and jointly conducted the EV01, 02 and 03 trials. He currently leads the Wellcome Trust funded “UK HIV Vaccine Consortium”, which is producing GMP DNA, Adeno, modified pox and env gp140 protein bearing the identical HIV-1 ZM96 gag-pol-nef-env insert for the D-A-M-P trial of multiple prime-boost immunisation to induce heterotypic neutralising responses.

Hans Wolf

Hans Wolf is Chairman and Director of the Department for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, University of Regensburg. His key expertise is in the molecular biology of viruses related to human cancer and HIV. Building on this expertise novel diagnostic procedures for nucleic acid, for humoral and cellular immunity and novel re-agents as well as concepts for vaccines have been developed, one of which was a vaccinia-based EBV derived vaccine, successfully tested in China in 1985. Since the late 1980’s several strategies of HIV vaccines (lipopeptides, VLP, vaccinia, DNA) have been pursued together with molecular epidemiology of HIV in China. The Institute is the WHO collaborating centre for research and control of virus-associated cancers and the WHO collaborating centre for reference and research on viral hepatitis. With its special focus on vaccines the Institute is represented in the National Steering Committee on Vaccination, offers regular vaccination services to the public and has conducted more than 20 clinical vaccine trials.