A warm welcome to Andrea Ablasser
© 2014 EPFL
Andrea Ablasser was appointed tenure-track Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences (SV).
As a researcher, she has already contributed significantly to the understanding of the innate immune system, revealing, for example, new molecular mechanisms that explain how immune cells are able to detect the DNA of pathogenic bacteria. Andrea Ablasser identified a novel protein, AIM2, which the cells use to detect this DNA. She also demonstrated that host cells can produce and secrete nucleic acid the moment that pathogenic molecules are detected. These remarkable results have had an immediate impact on the current understanding of these fundamental processes, with great potential for therapeutic implementation. With a profile that combines medical science and scientific research, Andrea Ablasser complements the team of the Global Health Institute, at the School of Life Sciences.
Andrea Ablasser was awarded the 2014 "Paul-Ehrlich-et-Ludwig-Darmstaedter" Prize; this recognition, of € 60000, is distributed each year to a German young scientist of the biomedical domain, aged below 40; Andrea Ablasser headed a research group at the University of Bonn, before joining the EPFL campus.