Professor Michael S Pepper

MBChB (Cape Town), PhD (Geneva), MD (Geneva), Privat Docent (Geneva)

Full CV

Michael Pepper is Director of the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and a professor in the Department of Immunology in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Pretoria. He is also professeur associé in the Department of Genetic Medicine and Development in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Michael was born in Bloemfontein in South Africa and attended Pretoria Boy’s High School. He obtained his MBChB in 1982 from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Cape Town, and moved to Geneva in 1986, where he obtained his PhD in 1990 and MD in 1992. In 1997 he obtained his Habilitation and had the title Privat Docent conferred on him. He returned to South Africa in July 2004.

Michael has worked extensively in the field of clinically-oriented (translational) molecular cell biology and has made seminal contributions to understanding the mechanisms of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. His current scientific interests are in the fields of cell-based therapy (including stem cells) and the human genome, and he directs the projects of several post-graduate (BSc (Hons), MSc and PhD) and post-doctoral students at the Universities of Pretoria and Geneva.

Michael is co-responsible, together with Prof. Michele Ramsay, for co-ordinating the Southern African Human Genome Programme which was launched in January 2011. He has also been responsible for co-ordinating the revision of Chapter 8 of the National Health Act and the regulations thereto since mid-2009. Michael has developed a 5-day continuing education course in bioentrepreneurship which is presented in four provinces in South Africa and is now in its 7^th year. He was until recently a member of the National Advisory Committee on Innovation (Project leader: “Bioeconomy Policies and Strategies”) which advises the Minister of Science and Technology and was also Chairperson of the National Biotech Advisory Committee.

Michael has more than 200 medical and scientific publications with and H-Index of 65 (Web of Science; Scopus). He frequently interacts with the media and writes for the lay press on scientific and medical matters. He has received a number of awards for his research. Michael has been extensively involved in teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and has lectured extensively on the international circuit. He is frequently solicited as a peer reviewer, and is currently on the editorial boards of Lymphatic Research and Biology, Current Angiogenesis, The Journal of Medical Law and Ethics and Applied and Translational Genomics. Until recently he was on the editorial boards of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis & Vascular Biology, The Angiogenesis Journal, and Current Cardiology Reviews.

Michael is a member of the South African Medical Association, the South African Medico-Legal Society, the Human Genome Organization, the Southern African Society of Human Genetics, the South African Genetics Society, the World Marrow Donor Association and the South African Stem Cell Transplantation Society. He was on the European Vascular Biology Association EXCOM from 1993-2004.

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