A warm welcome to Elisa Oricchio!

© 2014 EPFL

© 2014 EPFL

Elisa Oricchio has been appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Life Sciences in the School of Life Sciences (SV), as from November 1, 2014.

Elisa Oricchio has already contributed to extensive studies in oncology by her discovery of a tumor suppressor protein that is present in normal cells but absent in the cells of certain types of lymphoma and other cancers. She also demonstrated that the net effect of the administration of this factor to cancer cells is anti-cancerous. These findings have enormous therapeutic potential, and her work has initiated the launch of therapeutic studies. Based on the discovery of the tumor suppressor protein, the researcher was able to establish, for the first time, a mouse model that enables detailed investigation of follicular lymphoma, a form of blood cancer that is very difficult to study.

Elisa Oricchi's Laboratory is part of the ISREC-Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research, one of the four research institutes homed at the EPFL School of Life Sciences.

The appointment of Elisa Oricchio arises from the desire to strengthen translational oncology and from the joint initiative between UNIL, EPFL and CHUV to create the Swiss Cancer Centre SCCL (Swiss Cancer Center Lausanne).

To realize its commitment to accelerating progress in oncology, the ISREC Foundation has contributed a sum of 3,000,000 Swiss francs for the creation of a Chair in Translational Oncology headed by Professor Elisa Oricchio.