Yolande Chvatchko

Biography

 Yolande Chvatchko brings more than 25 years of experience in basic immunology and drug discovery and development to Calypso Biotech. Recently her focus has been inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, Lupus Erythematosus, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Psoriasis.Previously, Yolande was Senior Director at the Merck Serono Geneva Research Centre (2008-2013). As Head of the Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology Division, she and her teams were responsible for taking biologicals and small molecular weight compounds from discovery into the pre-clinical phase, and then to support the programs into Phase I and II with biomarker discovery.   Prior to Merck Serono, Yolande was Head of the Immunology Department at Serono Pharmaceutical Research Institute (2001-2008) and Senior Scientist at the Glaxo Wellcome Research Institute in Geneva (1994-1998). Before joining Glaxo, Yolande was a Scientific Member of the Immunology and Allergy Department, University Hospital in Lausanne and Project Leader at Aster Biotechnologies in la Gaude, France.  Yolande is a Swiss citizen, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the Nice University, and received a PhD in Cell Biology from the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research in 1987. She then continued with post-doctoral work at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, in Epalinges, before leaving academia to take an industrial position. She has published 38 scientific publications in international journals and is co-inventor of 16 patents.

Research Interest

 Biologicals and small molecular weight compounds from discovery into the pre-clinical phase, and then to support the programs into Phase I and II with biomarker discovery.