Professor Sir Stewart Cole
Stewart Cole is an internationally renowned scientist and Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis. He was President of the Institut Pasteur from January 2018 to January 2024. From 2007 to 2017, he was full Professor and Director of the Global Health Institute at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne – a world-leading education and research center, where he is now Professor Emeritus.
Prior to joining EPFL, Professor Cole worked for 24 years as a researcher and group leader at the Institut Pasteur, and also held various research management positions. He was Director of Strategic Technologies and then Executive Scientific Director. He was also acting President of the Institut Pasteur in Paris in 2005.
He has been the recipient of many national and international prizes and distinctions. In 2009, he was awarded the World Health Organization’s prestigious Stop-TB Partnership Kochon Prize. Other prizes include : Prix Jean-Pierre Lecocq, Académie des Sciences, France ; Marjory Stephenson Prize from the Society for General Microbiology, UK; Emil von Behring Prize from the University of Marburg, Gardner Middlebrook Lifetime Achievement Award. Professor Cole is an EMBO member, Fellow of the Royal Society, UK and associate member of the National Academy of Pharmacy, France.
He has been involved in the work of several foundations (Chair of the board of the Innovative Medicines for Tuberculosis Foundation and President of the Commission médicale of the Fondation Raoul Follereau). Professor Cole has served on numerous scientific committees at the World Health Organization, the Wellcome Trust, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and elsewhere.
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Stewart Cole has published more than 350 scientific papers on infectious diseases, most notably tuberculosis and leprosy.