Professor and Head of the Institute of Experimental Immunology, Department of Pathology at the University of Zurich. Among other professional memberships, he is a member of the Swiss Society of Allergy and Immunology, the Swiss Society of Pathology, the Swiss Society of Microbiology, the Swiss society of Cell and Molecular Biology and the US Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the board of directors of Novartis International AG and Cytos AG, and an advisor to different institutes and biotechnology companies. Dr. Zinkernagel is specialized in infectious diseases and immunopathology. He is a pioneer in research on self-nonself discrimination in immunology. He received the Nobel Prize in medicine (1996).