Dual leadership for the Botnar Research Centre

In September 2018, the University of Basel and ETH Zurich jointly launched the Botnar Research Centre for Child Health (BRCCH) in Basel. It is now clear who will head this new research center: Professor Georg Holländer, a distinguished expert, has been recruited as founding director. Georg Holländer is a pediatrician, and his research involves investigating the development of immunological competence in growing organisms at the molecular and cellular level. He holds a double professorship at the universities of Basel and Oxford. Professor Sai Reddy of the Department of Biosystems, Science, and Engineering (D-BSSE) at ETH Zurich has been appointed Vice Director. Sai Reddy is an expert in the fields of systems and synthetic immunology, with a focus on applications in biotechnology, vaccination, and immunotherapy. The President’s Board of the University of Basel and the Executive Board of ETH Zurich approved the corresponding applications last week.

The Botnar Research Centre for Child Health (BRCCH) will begin operations in Basel at the beginning of 2019 and will be established gradually. Its aim is to bring together outstanding science and clinical research from different disciplines to develop new methods and digital innovations for worldwide use in pediatrics. The research center combines the competencies of the two universities in systems biology and medicine, as well as in the health-relevant fields of life sciences, engineering, social sciences and information technology. The research center’s work is designed to help prevent disease, develop new approaches to treatment, improve diagnoses and impact predictions, and promote financially viable solutions. The BRCCH is funded by Fondation Botnar (Basel) with a contribution of CHF 100 million.