Pascale Vonaesch joins the NCCR Microbiomes

We are delighted to welcome Pascale Vonaesch as a new PI of the NCCR Microbiomes!

Pascale Vonaesch holds a PhD in Infection Biology from the Institute of Microbiology of the ETH Zurich, and a Master of Advanced Studies in Public Health from the Pasteur-CNAM School of Public Health in Paris. From 2013 to 2019, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institut Pasteur in France, carrying stays as exchange visitor at the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar, the Institut Pasteur de Bangui (Central African Republic) and the University of British Columbia (Canada). She moved back to Switzerland as an SNSF Return Fellow at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, where she became a Scientific Project Leader in 2020. The same year, she was awarded a prestigious Eccellenza Assistant Professorship by the SNSF. Pascale Vonaesch is a newly appointed Assistant Professor at the Department of Fundamental Microbiology of the University of Lausanne, starting in August 2021. 

The research interests of Pascale Vonaesch revolve around tropical diseases, both in fundamental and in clinical research. She focuses on infection and nutrition, and especially on the contribution of the human microbiome to health and disease. Pascale Vonaesch is the co-leader, with Philippe Sansonetti (Institut Pasteur), of the project Afribiota, which aims to better understand childhood malnutrition in the developing world. Within the NCCR Microbiomes, she will investigate whether the gut microbiome can influence the development of important non-communicable diseases, especially those associated with child undernutrition.

The Vonaesch lab will expand the NCCR’s research on non-infectious diseases. You can learn more about Pascale Vonaesch’s research on her lab website.