Jean-François Borel is one of the discoverers of cyclosporin. The compound is naturally produced by a variety of fungus, where is acts as an antibiotic to suppress bacterial growth. Borel's research in the late 1970s demonstrated that in addition to the antibiotic activity, cyclosporin could act as an immunosupressant. This latter property of the compound has been exploited in limiting the rejection of transplanted organs in humans.

Borel was born in Antwerp, Belgium. After undergraduate studies in that city, he studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. He obtained his Ph.D. in immunogenetics 1964. From there he obtained training in veterinary immunogenetics. In 1965, he moved to the Swiss Research Institute Department of Medicine where he studied immunology, particularly the inflammatory response. Five years later, he joined the scientific staff at Sandoz (now Novartis). He has been director of the immunology and microbiology departments...