Marcel Tanner

Biography

Professor Marcel Tanner is former director of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) in Switzerland and professor of epidemiology and medical parasitology at the University of Basel. He devoted his entire life to develop new drugs and vaccines for the eradication of malaria and other poverty-related diseases and to find new solutions to strengthen health systems in Africa and the Pacific region. Tanner is chair of the Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) and member of the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC) of WHO; chair of the INCLEN Trust, the INDEPTH network and of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi). He chairs the Scientific Advisory Board of FIND and is member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases in Singapore. Marcel Tanner was key in building up research and implementation institutions in Africa, namely the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) in Tanzania and the Centre Suisse de Recherche Scientifiques (CSRS) in Côte d’Ivoire. In 2016 he was elected President of the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) as well as High Level Representative North of European and Developing Countries' Clinical Trials Partnership.

Research Interest

To develop effective, accessible, and affordable vaccines against diseases of poverty.