Welcome to uBICo, the Immunology Community at the University of Basel.
The University of Basel Immunology Community (uBICo) was founded in 2015 with the vision to bring together immunologists in Basel to promote collaboration and excellence in research, teaching, and outreach.
The mission of UBICO is to (i) develop a forum for the emergence of collaborative research projects; (ii) offer master and PhD students the best possible training; (iii) serve as a forum for immunology in Basel as well as a portal to the departments, partner institutions, research programs and job opportunities and (iv) organize events to inform the Basel public on important issues related to immunology.
UBICO believes that the ever-increasing importance of immunology in combatting bacterial pathogens, viruses and cancer requires a concerted effort among researchers working in immunology to communicate, collaborate and inform. UBICO aims to achieve the above through established seminar programs for UBICO researchers, a Distinguished Immunology Speakers program within which leading scientists are being invited to the University of Basel to present their research and discuss immunology with students and UBICO members, an Immunology PhD Club, that is a forum where PhD and MD-PhD students present their research to their peers, an annual UniBasel Immunology Community Retreat in Engelberg, where students, postdocs and members of the medical and Phil II faculty present and discuss their research as well as an active outreach program to inform the public.
Collaborations
The uBICo community is also closely interlinked with the immunology communities in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, and Strasbourg, France, forming a trinational network within the Upper Rhine Immunology (URI) group, an active community that organizes a yearly trinational meeting and in 2019 initiated a student exchange program, with participation of several uBICo members as either host laboratory or having send students to either Strasbourg or Freiburg.
The partnership with the other URI groups also led to the development of EURIdoc which is an interdisciplinary doctoral programme in the Upper Rhine region in the field of immunology. The programme includes 28 doctoral positions for young scientists from all over the world. is run and coordinated by Eucor – The European Campus.
The activities initiated by UBICO are essential to the success of immunology as a discipline at the University of Basel, its associated Hospitals (University Hospital, University Children’s Hospital) as well as the interaction of the immunology community with the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) of the ETH and with the Swiss TPH.