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
Peter Liljeström
Giuseppe Pantaleo
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.
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).
