Full Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

Born in Germany, Andrea Ablasser studied medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Germany), earning her MD in 2010. She completed clinical rotations at both Harvard Medical School (Boston, US) and the University of Oxford (UK). After postdoctoral work at the University of Bonn (Germany), she joined the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) as professor in 2014 and was promoted to full professor in 2021.

Ablasser’s research has revolutionized our understanding of innate immunity, playing a significant role in elucidating how cells respond to intracellular DNA as a signal of infection via the cGAS-STING pathway, a fundamental mechanism of immunity. She also identified cyclic GMP-AMP (cGAMP) as a second messenger in the immune response. In addition, Ablasser demonstrated that aberrant activation of the cGAS-STING pathway can lead to chronic inflammation and autoimmunity, illuminating the processes that contribute to disease.