Professor of Medical Immunology at the ETH Zurich and USI; Group leader of the Cellular Immunology Laboratory at the IRB

Federica Sallusto is an expert in the field of human cellular immunology. Her research has focused on dendritic cell and T cell traffic, mechanisms of T cell differentiation and immunological memory. Among her contributions are the definition of “central memory” and “effector memory” T cells as memory subsets with distinct migratory capacity and effector function, the discovery of Th22 cells as a distinct subset of skin-homing T cells, the characterization of non-classic Th1 cells induced by bacteria and of two distinct types of Th17 cells with pro-inflammatory and regulatory properties. She also developed methods for the analysis of human naïve and memory T cell repertoires based on high throughput cellular screenings of expanded T cell libraries that has been instrumental to identify autoreactive T cells in patients with narcolepsy.

Federica Sallusto is currently Professor of Medical Immunology at the ETH Zurich and at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano (joint professorship) and group leader of the Cellular Immunology Laboratory and Director of the Center of Medical Immunology at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona. Starting in 2022 she will be president of EFIS (European Federation of Immunological Societies).