Stewart Cole is an internationally renowned scientist and professor of microbial pathogenesis. Since 2007, he has served as professor and director of the Global Health Institute at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). For 24 years, Cole worked as a researcher and also held various research management positions at the Institut Pasteur. He was director of strategic technologies and then executive scientific director, contributing to several patent applications relating to HIV/AIDS, cervical cancer and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. He participated in the scientific advisory boards of the Institut Pasteur in Iran; the Institut Pasteur in Montevideo, Uruguay; and the  Institut Pasteur in Lille, France. Cole was also acting president of the Institut Pasteur in Paris in 2005. He has been the recipient of many national and international prizes and distinctions. In 2009, he was awarded the World Health Organization’s prestigious Stop-TB Partnership Kochon Prize. During his career, he has been involved in the work of several foundations and scientific committees, and was notably chair of the board of the Innovative Medicine for Tuberculosis Foundation and president of the commission médicale for the Fondation Raoul Follereau. Cole has also published more than 350 scientific papers on infectious diseases, most notably tuberculosis and leprosy.