Patrick Aebischer

Patrick Aebischer (born 22 November 1954 in Fribourg, Switzerland) was the president of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) from 17 March 2000 to 31 December 2016. He is a professor in neuroscience and head of the Neurodegenerative Disease Laboratory at the EPFL. Aebischer was trained as an MD (1980) and a neuroscientist (Dr. Med., 1983) at the University of Geneva and University of Fribourg in Switzerland. From 1984 to 1992, he worked at Brown University in Providence (Rhode Island, United States), as Research Scientist, Assistant and then associate professor of Medical Sciences. In 1991, he became the chairman of the Section of Artificial Organs, Biomaterials and Cellular Technology of the Division of Biology and Medicine of Brown University. In autumn 1992, he returned to Switzerland as a professor and director of the Surgical Research Division and Gene Therapy Center at the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) in Lausanne. In 1999, Aebischer was nominated President of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, by the Swiss Federal Council. He took office as president in March 2000 and was reelected to this position in 2004 and 2008. He has decided to leave this position at the end of 2016. Since 1 January 2017, the president of the EPFL is Martin Vetterli.