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 Ari Helenius, PhD
– Professor for Biochemistry, Institute of Biochemistry, ETH Zürich
– World leader studying over 20 virus-host cell interactions
– Member of U.S. National Academy of Sciences
– Awarded the Benoist Prize in 2007
Full Professor of Biochemistry at the Institute of Biochemistry, ETH Zurich since November 1997. He currently heads several interdisciplinary projects in the fields of protein folding and virus-host cell interactions. His research focuses on membrane biology, virology and protein chemistry. Prof. Helenius’ group is currently working on two fundamental questions:
- By which mechanism are viruses able to enter host cells and how do they reach the nucleus where they multiply?
- How are newly synthesized proteins folded within the organelles of the living cell, and how does the cellular quality control system work, deciding whether proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum are correctly folded or not?
Prof. Helenius was previously chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University, New Haven, CT (1992-97), having been a full professor there since 1983. Prior to joining Yale, Prof. Helenius was a staff scientist at the European Laboratory for Molecular Biology (EMBL) in Heidelberg. Prof. Helenius studied biochemistry at the University of Helsinki and received his doctorate under Professor Kai Simons and was awarded the Komppa Prize for the best dissertation on chemistry in Finland in 1973. |
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