Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas is Emeritus Professor of Cell Biology, Harvard University, and Chairman of the National Council for Research, Technology and Innovation (ESETEK), Greece.

He studied Chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and earned his PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge, followed by postdoctoral research in Basel and at Stanford University.

From 1981 to 1998, he served as a professor at Yale University in the Departments of Biology and Cell Biology. At Yale, he was Director of the Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology Program at the Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He also served as Director of the Division of Biological Sciences at Yale and was a member of the university’s Executive Committee.

In 1998, he moved his research and teaching activities to Harvard University, where he continues to lead his laboratory as Emeritus Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. Holding the Isselbacher–P. Schwartz Chair, he directed the Developmental Biology and Cancer Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and was the founding director of Harvard’s “Developmental and Regenerative Biology” program.

In 1999, he was elected to the Collège de France in Paris as Professor of Developmental Biology and Genetics, where he taught until 2012 and now holds the title of Emeritus Professor. He also founded and directed the Department of Developmental Biology and Genetics at the Curie Institute in Paris until 2010.

From 2012 to 2017, he served as Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President at Biogen.

He is a co-founder of the non-profit Fondation Santé, which supports biomedical research in Greece, as well as a co-founder of the biotechnology companies Exelixis, Anadys, and Cellzome.

Among other honors, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Philosophical Society of Cambridge, the Orthodox Academy of Crete, a corresponding member of the Academy of Athens, and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).