Hi! I am Ueli. Well, Ulrich if you read in my passport, but everyone calls me Ueli.

It’s a very Swiss name – that’s where I was born and raised. I went to school and studied medical microbiology at the University of Bern, the capital of the land of cheese, watches and beautiful mountain ranges.

After completing my PhD in 2006 I felt like a new start somewhere far away. And it doesn’t get much further than Australia really… With its high-quality research centres and the vibrant lifestyle, Melbourne just seemed like the place for me. In 2007 I packed my bags and went, equipped with fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Novartis Foundation first to La Trobe University and later to WEHI to research innate immune signaling and inflammation. I got hooked with the translational side of the work at WEHI and transitioned towards drug discovery projects and small molecule therapeutics development during this exciting time, where I also got married to my gorgeous wife, and became a proud daddy of 2 wonderful girls.

Anaxis Pharma, a spin out company between WEHI and SYNthesis, approached me in 2017 whether I would like to lead the biology of their drug development efforts, targeted towards cell death pathways and inflammation. This was an outstanding opportunity for me to work in commercial projects, while still embedded in the academic environment of WEHI. After a few successful years with Anaxis (and some great business trips to Paris), I was approached by David Komander, and together we decided that the field of ubiquitin, deubiquitinases and protein homeostasis is too powerful to not start our own translational project. So I was appointed as the first Scientist Entrepreneur at WEHI, with the goal to generate early data packages and build a company focusing on Deubiquitinases—work that would ultimately help pave the way for the launch of Entact Bio.

At Entact, I am delighted to be part of a fantastic team of extremely dedicated scientists and to have the opportunity to have real impact on patients' lives. We have the power and the knowledge to harness the ubiquitin system to develop a new type of therapies, that lets us attack health problems from an entirely new angle. This is beyond exciting and has so much potential. And with the team at Entact, I am sure we will also have some fun on the way!