Past President - Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser

Past President

Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser, Prof. Dr. (Switzerland)

Prof. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser Prof. Dr. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser has received her Ph.D. in 1996 in cell biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. From 1996 to 2000 she held a post-doctoral position in Biopharmacy at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the ETH and in 2000 she joined Prof. Peter Gehr’s research group at the University of Bern, Switzerland as a postdoc. After promotion to group leader in 2006 she completed her habilitation in cell biology in 2009. Prof. Rothen-Rutishauser has pioneered the development of relevant human 3D lung models. In combination with air-liquid cell exposure systems the models are applied to assess effects of aerosolized drugs and nanomaterials. Since 2011 she is the new chair in BioNanomaterials at the Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, the position is shared equally with Prof. Alke Fink.

Prof. Rothen-Rutishauser has published more than 220 peer-reviewed papers and is an associate editor of the journal “Particle and Fibre Toxicology”, she is also on the board of many other journals such as “Nanotoxicology” or the “Journal of Aerosol Medicine and Pulmonary Drug Delivery”. Her work resulted in a proven track record of successful collaborations with implementation partners, ranging from regulatory bodies, federal agencies to industry partners. Furthermore, ongoing activities in related projects and working groups such as the ProSafe task force, OECD and WHO allows promoting to replace in vivo testing with predictive lung cell models. Prof. Rothen-Rutishauser’s engagement in application-oriented research was in addition recognized and funded by numerous grants as well as awarded with several prestigious prices such as the Young Investigator Award 2009 from ISAM. She served as a board member for ISAM from 2011-2015 and was the conference chair of the annual conference in Montreux, Switzerland, in 2019.