The Leenaards Foundation has awarded its 2026 scientific prizes to two teams from the Lake Geneva region. The first project, led by Isabella Eckerle, professor at the UNIGE Faculty of Medicine and director of the HUG/UNIGE Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases, alongside Andrew Azman (UNIGE Faculty of Medicine) and Jérôme Gouttenoire (Faculty of Medicine and Biology, UNIL), aims to reduce the impact of the hepatitis E virus (genotype 1) by developing a treatment that could prevent its replication during outbreaks. 

The second project, led by Elena Beanato (HUG), in collaboration with Friedhelm Christoph Hummel, director of the Hummel Lab at EPFL and professor at the Faculty of Medicine at UNIGE, and Pierre Mégevand, a neurologist at the HUG and professor at the Human Neuron Lab within the Faculty of Medicine at UNIGE, explores a new non-invasive approach to restoring cognitive functions following a head trauma or in cases of epilepsy, with a particular focus on spatial orientation. 

Decoding the hepatitis E virus to counter epidemics

Over 20 million people around the world are infected with hepatitis E every year, leading to at least 44,000 deaths – primarily in Africa and Asia where the genotype 1 virus (HEV-1) spreads through contaminated drinking water, triggering vast epidemics. The mortality rate among pregnant women can reach 25% in regions with poor water-purification and sanitation infrastructure. Despite this heavy toll, relatively little research has been performed on HEV-1, and hepatitis E is still largely under-diagnosed. What’s more, the virus is highly stable in the environment, meaning doctors have few tools for combating it.

“Hepatitis E is one of the hardest diseases to deal with out in the field. Very few actionable solutions are available when an epidemic strikes,” says Isabella Eckerle. “Our research group’s hope is to be able to rapidly identify antiviral drug candidates in order to give doctors a treatment they can use during epidemics to help patients with severe forms of the disease.” 

Restoring cognitive function with non-invasive electrical stimulation

People’s ability to orient themselves in their surroundings – an essential function of the human brain – can be temporarily or permanently altered by even a mild traumatic brain injury (like a concussion) or some forms of epilepsy. Around 80% of traumatic brain injuries can be classified as mild to moderate and, of these, nearly 15% result in a disorder that continues more than six months after the trauma. This disorder includes impaired spatial memory, an inability to situate oneself and disorientation. “Even simple tasks like getting your bearings in a city, finding your way and remembering familiar routes can become a real challenge,” says Elena Beanato, a project manager at the HUG Outpatient Clinic for Brain and Mental Health. For now, few options are available for treating this condition. 

Dr. Beanato’s cross-disciplinary research group is working to change that by developing an innovative method for deep brain stimulation without invasive surgery. The team has designed a procedure that uses temporal interference to stimulate areas deep inside the brain. In their method, two high-frequency electric fields are applied to a patient’s scalp. “The two fields intersect deep within the patient’s brain and produce a modulation that can influence neural activity in a targeted way – particularly in the hippocampus, which is a key region for memory and spatial orientation.”

These two research teams, along with last year’s winners, will be honoured at the 2026 Leenaards Science & Health Event on Wednesday 28 October at 6.30 pm at the University of Lausanne.