Martin Fussenegger is Professor of Biotechnology and Bioengineering at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-​BSSE) of the ETH Zurich as well as at the University of Basel. His research is focused on mammalian cell engineering.

Fussenegger graduated with Werner Arber at the Biocenter of the University of Basel, obtained his PhD in Medical Microbiology at the Max Planck Institute of Biology and continued his postdoctoral studies on host-​pathogen interactions at the Max Planck Institute of Infection Biology. He then joined the ETH Institute of Biotechnology, where he received his habilitation in 2000, and became Swiss National Science Foundation Professor of Molecular Biotechnology in 2002, prior to being awarded a Chair in Biotechnology and Bioengineering at the ETH Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering in 2004. He received the Gaden Award, the Merck Cell Culture Engineering Award, the Medal of the European Society for Animal Cell Technology (ESACT), the Gutenberg Chair Excellence Award, two consecutive Advanced Grant Awards by the European Research Council (ERC) and the James E. Bailey Award.