Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine

Director

Prof. Angèle Gayet-Ageron

New Director and Directorate Board at ISPM

We are delighted to look back on an important transition at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM) in 2025, marked by the appointment of two outstanding women to professorships - one of whom has also taken on the leadership of the Institute.

Professor Angèle Gayet-Ageron was appointed Full Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Bern and assumed the role of Director of ISPM on 1 April 2025, succeeding Professor Oscar Franco. With a distinguished background in medicine, epidemiology, and clinical research, and experience spanning Geneva University Hospitals, the University of Geneva, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, she brings deep expertise in meta-research, infectious disease epidemiology, and the sociology of science. Her commitment to health equity and gender equality is exemplified by her SNSF NRP83–funded project GRACE (Gender Research Assessment at Committees of Ethics), which evaluates whether targeted interventions for researchers and Swiss research ethics committees improve the systematic integration of sex and gender in research protocols. Her scientific leadership and engagement in major national projects have already proven invaluable for the Institute’s development in 2025.

We are equally proud to have Ana Maria Vicedo Cabrera, who joined ISPM in 2019 appointed Extraordinarius Professor in January 2025. An environmental epidemiologist, her work focuses on understanding the health impacts of climate change. Her career journey, shaped by overcoming early barriers as a young foreign woman in academia, reflects both resilience and scientific excellence. Her research on climate-related health risks continues to be essential for developing strategies to protect populations in an increasingly warming world.

Together, Professors Gayet-Ageron and Vicedo Cabrera have significantly strengthened ISPM’s leadership and scientific profile in 2025. Their combined expertise in epidemiology, climate health, gender equity, and methodological innovation is shaping the Institute’s strategic direction and reinforcing its mission to advance public health research, education, and impact on population health.

We warmly thank both colleagues for their inspiring contributions to ISPM and to the wider public health community throughout 2025.

Prof. Angèle Gayet-Ageron
NRP83- Gender Research Assessment at Committees of Ethics
Prof. Ana Maria Vicedo Cabrera

SNSF Ambizione - top-priority health research project on droughts and health at ISPM

Coral Salvador, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vigo, has been awarded a prestigious SNSF Ambizione grant for her project IGIA-SETH (unravelInG the ImpActs of droughtS on human hEalTH). The project started in July 2025 at the Climate Epidemiology and Public Health research group at ISPM. Between 2022 and 2024, she was a visiting researcher within the group.

Drought is one of the most complex and devastating extreme weather phenomena. The evidence on the complex associations between droughts and health outcomes is limited and inconsistent, particularly when droughts coexist with other environmental hazards such as heat. The mechanisms mediating the associations and drivers of vulnerability remain unclear. Clarifying inconsistencies in drought-related health effects is needed, especially considering the expected increase in drought severity in the future due to climate change.

IGIA-SETH aims to fill the existing gaps through five interconnected Work Packages (WPs) that will be supported by interdisciplinary and international network of collaborators. WP1 will provide a theoretical framework on the pathways, drivers, and modulators that define the associations between droughts and specific health outcomes. In WP2 and WP3, the associations between different drought conditions and all-cause mortality and specific health outcomes will be studied using a worldwide database and state-of-the-art methods in climate epidemiology. The performance of different drought metrics, the influence of drought characteristics in the estimates and the interaction between droughts and other environmental hazards and their implications for public health will be further explored. WP4 will clarify the role of socioeconomic and contextual factors as potential effect modifiers to identify vulnerability patterns. Finally, WP5 will estimate the potential health risks associated with droughts under different scenarios. This framework will be crucial to understanding and reducing current and future threats related to droughts.

SNSF: Coral Salvador

Major research grants for exciting projects launched in 2025

1. Eliane Rohner, PD, MD, MSc, leads an ambitious SNSF-funded research project that expands the South African HIV Cancer Match (SAM) study to address the region’s accelerated epidemiological transition. By integrating nationwide laboratory data on diabetes with one of the world’s largest HIV-cancer cohorts, the project will investigate how the coexisting epidemics of HIV and diabetes shape cancer trends in South Africa. Using advanced record linkage and state-of-the-art epidemiological methods, the study will generate critical evidence on multimorbidity and cancer risk, with direct relevance for cancer prevention and control strategies in South Africa and other low- and middle-income countries facing similar transitions.
    
2. TACTIC is a three-year international research project funded by the Wellcome Trust that aims to develop a living digital toolkit to support the attribution of health impacts to climate change. Led by Prof. Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera, the project brings together a global consortium of researchers and stakeholders to co-produce data, methods, and policy-relevant insights for health attribution studies, with a strong focus on climate change hotspots and underrepresented health outcomes. By combining cutting-edge climate epidemiology, capacity building in low-resource settings, and tailored communication tools, TACTIC seeks to strengthen science-to-policy translation and improve understanding of the health burden of climate change.
    
3. Fabiën Belle, PhD and Christina Schindera, PD Dr. med., PhD are leading an important SNSF-funded project, “Underweight, Overweight, and Linear Growth of Childhood Cancer Patients,” aimed at advancing understanding of nutritional status during and after childhood cancer treatment. The project will leverage standardized and interoperable health data spanning from birth to long-term survivorship, enabling the modeling of BMI and growth trajectories over four decades. By establishing international collaborations in Portugal, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and the USA, this research will provide critical insights for optimizing physical, cognitive, and emotional development and inform the creation of global surveillance guidelines for childhood cancer survivors.
    

SNSF: Eliane Rohner

TACTIC Project

SNSF: Fabiën Belle, Christina Schindera

Ewald Weibel Award for Lung Research on rare disease primary ciliary dyskinesia

Prof. Myrofora Goutaki (ISPM) and PD Dr Loretta Müller (University Children’s Hospital Bern) have been awarded the Ewald Weibel Award 2025 in recognition of their outstanding contributions to lung and respiratory research in Switzerland, with a particular focus on primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD). The award has been jointly presented each year since 2017 by the Swiss Lung Foundation and the University of Bern.

Prof. Goutaki, senior clinical epidemiologist and research team leader at ISPM, is recognized for her pioneering work advancing the epidemiological and clinical understanding of PCD. Her research has focused on PCD since 2012. She is the principal investigator of EPIC-PCD, a large international prospective cohort study of children and adults with PCD, and co-lead of the Swiss PCD Registry. In addition, she co-chairs the BEAT-PCD clinical research collaboration supported by the European Respiratory Society. Currently, she leads an SNSF-funded project addressing key unmet needs in PCD, investigating disease progression, ENT outcomes, and the social and psychological well-being of people with PCD and their families, in close partnership with patient representatives.

PD Dr Müller, senior scientist at the University Children’s Hospital Bern and research group leader at the Department of Biomedical Research, is honored for her major contributions to improving PCD diagnostics and advancing the understanding of disease mechanisms and treatment effects. She is co-head of the interdisciplinary center for PCD diagnosis and research at the University of Bern, where her work bridges basic science and clinical application.

Together, their complementary research has significantly strengthened PCD research and care in Switzerland and beyond.

Prof. Myrofora Goutaki

Literature-based discovery science: AGNODICE and Galenos

AGNODICE project led by Prof. Georgia Salanti successfully passed the preliminary selection stages for the NCCR (National Centre of Competence in Research) projects. Although it was not ultimately short-listed, AGNODICE will continue through separate, focused projects. For example, the work package on literature-based discovery science via synthesis of evidence from human and animal studies will be funded by The Wellcome Trust as part of the Galenos project.

GALENOS
Prof. Georgia Salanti