Keynote
Dr. Urs Jenal, PhD
Professor, Biozentrum Center for Molecular Life Sciences:
University of Basel
Keynote Lecture
November 21st, 2025
Dr. Jenal is a tenured Professor at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, where he has spent his entire academic career, starting as an Assistant Professor in 1996. He has served in many administrative roles, including as Vice-director of the Biozentrum. Dr. Jenal is also involved in graduate student education, including being the Head of the Biozentrum International PhD program (2009-2014), the Coordinator of the Biozentrum Graduate Teaching Program (2009-2016), Member of the Biozentrum Biology Teaching Committees, and Deputy Director of the NCCR AntiResist, a Swiss-wide Research Consortium with long term funding from the Swiss Government.
Dr. Jenal's lab has been at the forefront of the discovery and characterization of second messengers in non-pathogenic and pathogenic bacteria. As a postdoctoral fellow, he discovered that c-diGMP was a primary factor orchestrating morphogenesis, behavior, and proliferation during the bimodal life cycle of the model organism Caulobacter crescentus. The group developed many of the biochemical and cellular tools to study small-molecule-based signaling in a wide range of pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria. More recently, Dr. Jenal has spear-headed NCCR AntiResist, a research consortium dedicated to understanding antibiotic resistance mechanisms and developing novel stem cell-based human models for antibiotic R&D.