MD, is a clinician-scientist and the current professor and chairman of the Department of Dermatology at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich, Germany. Prof. French graduated from the University of Geneva and trained in internal medicine, basic research, and dermatology at the University of Geneva. In 2006 he was nominated as Louis-Jeantet Professor of Medicine at the University of Geneva, in 1999 he spent a year at the Department of Dermatology of the University of Pennsylvania, and between 2006 and 2018 he was professor and chairman of the Department of Dermatology of the Zurich University Hospital, Switzerland.
He is an expert in inflammatory skin diseases and author of over 320 original publications with an h-index of 54, over 13000 citations, and is ranked by Stanford University among the top 2% of scientists globally – all disciplines confounded. In 2012 he was awarded the Otto Naegeli Prize for the promotion of medical research, one of Switzerland’s most prestigious scientific awards.
Prof. French is internationally recognized for his activities as a past board-member, secretary-treasurer and president of the European Society of Dermatological Research (ESDR), past-Treasurer and president of the European Dermatology Forum, Member of the German Academy of Science Leopoldina, past vice-president of the Swiss Society for Dermatology and Venereology, and current President of the International League of Dermatological Societies (ILDS).