School of Life Sciences

Fosters education, research and innovation at the interface of engineering and biology to advance the understanding of the living world and solve biomedical problems.

3D model of dendritic spines (purple) making synapses with axons containing vesicles (yellow). Background shows electron microscope image of brain tissue. ©EPFL-Graham Knott — 3D model of dendritic spines (purple) making synapses with axons containing vesicles (yellow). Background shows electron microscope image of brain tissue. ©EPFL – Graham Knott

Jeremy Wong working at an anaerobic gas tight chamber, where he gros bacterial biofilms © J. Wong 2021 EPFL

"With an iPhD you essentially have double the fun"

Published:08.09.21 — Jeremy Wong is a third-year iPhD student with the labs of Professors Alexandre Persat and Tom Ian Battin, respectively at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences (SV) and Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC). Hailing from Canada and with his roots in Hong Kong, Wong has made his way into biology after a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. When not in lab, Jeremy can be found watching sunsets atop mountain peaks in Valais, playing his violin and harmonica, making polymer clay miniatures, and baking cakes and cookies for his lab mates, who he considers the friendliest guinea pigs for his newest culinary experiments.

Andrew Oates and Georg Fantner © Alain Herzog 2021 EPFL

“It's our duty to share the discoveries we make”

Published:31.08.21 — Two EPFL scientists – Georg Fantner, an associate professor, and Andrew Oates, the dean of the School of Life Sciences – recently published an article on how open science can be leveraged further in order to share discoveries and know-how with the scientific community.

Roman Chrast in front of the SV Building © 2021 EPFL / Aurélien Tock

"Streamline resources and improve performance of our core facilities"

Published:25.08.21 — Roman Chrast joined the EPFL School of Life Sciences just a few days before the lock-down in 2020 as coordinator of our research core facilities. We spoke to him about his vision, role and challenges.

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Our Mission

EPFL students working on portable biosensor

Education

We train engineers in Life Sciences with a solid polytechnic foundation. Our students acquire a multi-disciplinary education and study biology jointly with engineering, basic and computer sciences. We offer a Bachelor and Master program in Life Sciences Engineering, as well as four Doctoral programs in biotechnology and bioengineering, computational and quantitative biology, molecular life sciences and neurosciences.

Learn more about our education

Research

Our research groups operate at the interface of biology, basic sciences, computer sciences and engineering. This interdisciplinary environment stimulates innovative research to address essential questions in biological sciences. Cutting-edge core facilities and infrastructure support our scientists to push the boundaries of knowledge in development, neurosciences, immunology, cancer, infectious diseases and bioengineering.

Explore our research

Innovation

We cultivate a climate of exploration and translation of knowledge and technologies to a sustainable benefit of humankind. The life sciences flagship innovation encouragement program, Catalyze4Life, facilitates the advancement of scientific know-how towards applications. We maintain a constructive and open dialogue between science, industry and society.

Discover our innovation initiative