"Knowing something and teaching it are two very different things"

Bruno Correia © Alain Herzog / 2020 EPFL - Bruno Correia, the head of EPFL's Laboratory of Protein Design and Immunoengineering, has been named the best teacher in the life sciences and technology section for 2019 - just four years after giving his first-ever class. A single image changed the direction of Correia's career. The tenure track assistant professor remembers it as if it were yesterday. After finishing high school, Correia wasn't sure what he wanted to do, but as the son of two financial accounters, he was sure he didn't want to go into finance. "I wanted to help people and become a doctor, but my grades weren't good enough. So I settled for chemistry," he says. He studied the subject for three years without much enthusiasm, until the day a professor showed him a 3D image of a protein.