Oliver Hartley, 39: University of Geneva biochemistry professor

British expat scientist Oliver Hartley tells Swisster his move to Geneva was motivated more by love than science. But personal chemistry helped the molecular expert discover a rewarding career in his field - research directed at humanitarian work, aiming to help people in developing countries. A collision of human molecules brought Oliver Hartley to Geneva from his native Britain. Hartley, 39, was studying at England’s elite Cambridge University when he met a Genevan woman who was enrolled in a language course in the same town. The budding boffin obtained a doctoral degree in protein engineering, working with a group led by renowned scientist Sir Gregory Winter. 
But it was personal chemistry more than science that initially brought him to continue his research in Geneva. “I came for romantic, personal reasons,” Hartley told Swisster. “I met the woman who was to become my wife.” He was introduced to the Genevan artist through her cousin who was working with Hartley in biochemistry research. He secured a job first in molecular biology at Glaxo-Wellcome's biomedical research institute in Geneva but the pharamaceutical company shut it down shortly afterwards. When the opportunity arose to further his career at the University of Geneva’s faculty of medicine in 1997, he jumped at the offer.
 
Hartley later became a founding member of the Mintaka Foundation, which promotes scientific solutions to help people in poor countries. The non-profit foundation’s biggest project involves developing an anti-HIV drug that can be produced cheaply to help protect women and children in the Third World against AIDS, the sexually transmitted disease. Hartley has worked with another British expat scientist, Robin Offord, to develop a molecule that can be produced cheaply to fight the disease that afflicts millions of people. The foundation is now working to secure funding to take the drug to a pre-clinical trial stage, with an eventual goal of bringing it to market in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS afflicts millions of people.

 
Hartley recalled that the university hired him based on his scientific credentials and not on his ability to speak French, although “I’ve always been interested in the language and the culture.” The linguistic barrier began to fall when Hartley began to work with colleagues who spoke French. “I watched TV programmes and through my wife I made friends from Geneva . . . it accelerated the process.”
 “At the University of Geneva the main criteria (for teaching staff and researchers) by far is the scientific ability,” Hartley said. After that “there’s an expectation” that staff learn French to the point where they can give classes in that language, he said.
 
Coming from Cambridge, with its cluster of brainy Nobel Prize winners, Hartley is nonetheless impressed with the calibre of staff at Geneva university. “The faculty here is very dynamic,” he said. “I think Geneva has a good reputation in the research world.” With its numerous international groups or agencies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva is also “well placed for my particular interest – science directed at humanitarian work,” he said.      
 
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