Cancer Research in Switzerland - Krebsliga Schweiz

Swartz wants to find out how tumours accomplish
this trick. Using the lymphatic transport mechanisms,
she is trying to deliver vaccines and other drugs to
the lymph nodes. The drugs are aimed at affecting
the immune cells of the lymphatic system and stimulating
them to perform their actual task in the organism,
which is to destroy cancer cells instead of aiding
their spread.
SWISS BRIDGE Foundation: Supporting outstanding cancer research
SWISS BRIDGE was established upon the initiative of Thomas Hoepli, who was formerly
managing director of the foundation and today is a member of the foundation board.
The purpose of the foundation, which was set up in 1997 with the support of the Swiss
Cancer League, is to support high-quality research projects in Switzerland and abroad in
the fight against cancer using funds that come from private donors and foundations, such
as the Stammbach Foundation in Basel. SWISS BRIDGE has a foundation board, an international
scientific committee, a board of patrons, and a loyal circle of supporters and friends.
Starting in 2000, each year the foundation has given the SWISS BRIDGE AWARD, totalling
CHF 500,000. The award honours researchers whose research work promises to achieve
milestones in the study of and in the fight against cancer. The Scientific Office of the Swiss
Cancer League organizes the call for research grant applications and the review of the projects
submitted for the award. Up to now, the SWISS BRIDGE AWARD has awarded a total
of CHF 6.35 million for projects conducted by researchers in Belgium, England, France,
Israel, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Spain, and Switzerland.
The recipients of the SWISS BRIDGE AWARD in recent years were:
2010
Andrea Alimonti, MD Laboratory of Experimental Oncology, Oncology Institute of
Southern Switzerland (IOSI), Bellinzona, Switzerland
Ronit Satchi-Fainaro, PhD Department of Physiology and Pharmacology,
Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Anna Sablina, PhD Department of Molecular and Developmental Genetics,
Research Institute VIB, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
2009
Prof. Matthias Egger, MD Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern
Prof. Wilhelm Krek, PhD Institute of Cell Biology, ETH Zurich
Prof. Stephen C. West. PhD Clare Hall Laboratories, London Research Institute,
Cancer Research UK, South Mimms, England
Further information: www.swissbridge.ch
Prof. Melody Swartz, PhD
Melody Swartz was born in the
United States in 1969. She studied
at Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore, at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge,
and at Harvard Medical
School. She completed her PhD
in chemical engineering in 1998.
From 1999 to 2003 she was
assistant professor in the Departments of Biomedical
Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Northwestern
University in Chicago. Since 2003 she has been working
at the Institute of Bioengineering at the School of Life
Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Lausanne. In 2010 she was appointed full professor of
bioengineering. She heads a research team at the Laboratory
of Lymphatic and Cancer Bioengineering. Swartz
is married and has a son.
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