Ingrid Felger

Country: Germany/Switzerland, born: 1955
Present occupation: Research Group Leader, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH)
Field of research: Molecular epidemiology and diagnostics

Supported project: Genomics Approach to the Selection of New Antigens for Serological Diagnosis of Helminth Infections (2006)

"The foundation invested in an innovative branch of research that is developing exponentially and gives new impulses to diagnostic work by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute's (Swiss TPH's) outpatients department. New test systems were created that are now being developed for diagnostic laboratory routine."

The decoding of the hereditary information of the bilharziosis pathogen Schistosoma mansoni by an international research group in 2009 was an important step forward in control of the tropical disease and provided new approaches to medical diagnosis. The research project, sponsored by the R. Geigy Foundation, also contributed to developing the field of diagnostics in the new millennium. With the aid of bioinformatics, researchers defined new antigens in different helminthic diseases, which allows for a more exact diagnosis of the diseases than was formerly possible.