Organization and leadership
Part of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Geneva, the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology is located at the Sciences campus in Geneva. It is funded by the Canton and the University of Geneva, with additional support from numerous national and international funding agencies. The Department comprises of 10 research groups, various technology platforms, and a team of technical and administrative support. The Department Director runs the institute together with a co-Director and an administrative management team.
Department directorship
Prof. Sophie Martin, director
Born and raised in Switzerland, Sophie Martin received her PhD in 2003 from the University of Cambridge (UK) and obtained postdoctoral training at Columbia University in New York. In 2007, she started her independent lab at the University of Lausanne as a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) Professor, before being appointed Associate Professor in 2010 and Full Professor in 2018. She joined the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Geneva as Full Professor in 2023. Her work on cell polarity and cell fusion has been recognized by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO; young investigator 2009, Gold medal 2014, member since 2020), the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB; WICB Junior Award 2012) and Life Science Switzerland (LS2; Friedrich Miescher award 2014). She has served on the SNF and is currently a member of the Swiss Science Council.
More about Sophie Martin’s research at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology can be found here.
Prof. Paul Guichard, deputy director
Paul Guichard earned his PhD from Sorbonne University in 2010 following his doctoral work at the Institut Curie (France). He then joined Professor Pierre Gönczy’s laboratory at EPFL (Switzerland) for his postdoctoral research. In 2015, he established his independent group as an SNSF Professor at the University of Geneva, where he was appointed Associate Professor in 2021 and Full Professor in 2026. He is a co-founder of the Dubochet Center for Imaging (DCI) Geneva and the GenExM Expansion Microscopy Facility. His research focuses on the molecular architecture and assembly of centrioles and cilia and on developing advanced imaging approaches, including Ultrastructure Expansion Microscopy (U-ExM). In recognition of his contributions to centriole biology and the development of innovative imaging technologies, he received the Friedrich Miescher Prize in 2022 and, together with Virginie Hamel, the Cloëtta Prize in 2025 and the Royal Microscopical Society Light Microscopy Award in 2026.
More about Paul Guichard's research at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology can be found here.