Conferencia Santander biomedical lectures The quest of early biomarkers of vaccine safety and long-term immunity

The lecture will cover activities aimed at the definition of potential biomarkers predictive of efficacy and safety of vaccines. These activities relate essentially to approaches based on systems biology applied concomitantly to humans and to animal models in order to understand and possibly validate the value of the latter. These activities are carried out within the frame of a collaborative effort which sees the participation of vaccine industry and of various European academic groups.

Dr. Del Giudice is responsible of activities (mainly related to human immunology and translational research) focusing on the understanding of how vaccine-related (adjuvants, formulations, delivery, etc) and host-related factors (age, genetic makeup, environment, pharmaceutical treatments, etc) can affect positively or negatively the immune response to vaccines against several viral and bacterial diseases, more specifically in the areas of influenza, vaccine adjuvants, vaccination at the extremes of age, pertussis, staphylococcal infections, etc.

From 1996 and 2005, he was responsible of the preclinical research at Chiron Vaccines, Siena, mainly in the areas of the development of bacterial vaccines and of mucosal vaccines.

Before, he spent 12 years in Switzerland studying the immune response to malaria parasites first at the University of Geneva, then at the University of Lausanne, where he got the position of Professeur Agrégé. At the same time, he became medical officer (staff member) at the World Health Organization Headquarters, Division of Communicable Diseases.

He received his MD degree at the University of Milan, where he also got the Specialisation in Infectious Diseases. He then received his PhD in Immunology at the University of Geneva.

He is author and co-author of over 270 publications and member of several international societies and scientific institutional and non-governmental boards.

Favoreciendo un foro de discusión sobre los actuales avances de la biomedicina el Dr. Del Giudice permanecerá en nuestra comunidad a lo largo de todo el día anterior a la sesión, para intercambiar experiencias con miembros de la comunidad científica y clínica de Santander, y poder visitar los centros de Investigación de nuestra comunidad para conocer de primera mano a los científicos interesados.

Aquellos profesionales que deseen tener una reunión o asistir a algún otro evento durante su visita pueden ponerse en contacto en gesval1@idival.org.

La conferencia tendrá lugar el 24 de Noviembre a las 8:15 horas en el salón Téllez Plasencia, del HUMV.