Dr. Thomas Kaufmann is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Pharmacology, University of Bern, Switzerland. His research focuses on the regulation of programmed cell death and its implications for health and disease. He is particularly interested in the role of BCL-2 family proteins in cancer, apoptosis and inflammation-associated cell death (necroptosis) in innate immune cells and allergic effector cell biology.

‍

He is originally from Fribourg (Switzerland) where he studied biochemistry at the University of Fribourg and obtained his diploma in 2000. He then joined the group of Dr. Christoph Borner in Freiburg (Germany) where he obtained his PhD, working on apoptosis, in 2003.

‍

From 2004-2007 he moved to The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Dr. Andreas Strasser, broadening his expertise on apoptosis and BCL-2 family members. He returned to Switzerland in 2008 to start his own research lab as a Swiss National Science Foundation assitant professor at the University of Bern. In 2014 he was promoted to associate professor in experimental pharmacology.