Name:Prof Umberto d’Alessandro, MD, MSc, PhD
Title:Theme Leader Disease Control & Elimination
Umberto D’Alessandro (MD, MSc, PhD) has substantial work experience in Africa, first as a clinician and later as a clinical epidemiologist.
He has been involved in malaria research since 1990, when he carried out the evaluation of the Gambian National programme on insecticide-treated bed nets. He joined the Department of Parasitology at the Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium in 1996, where he set up and led the Epidemiology Unit in the Parasitology Department. There, he developed a research programme around three themes: antimalarial treatment, including drug resistance, malaria prevention, and the P. vivax in vitro cycle.
Professor d’Alessandro joined the Medical Research Council UK in The Gambia as Theme Leader: Disease Control & Elimination in January 2011.
Key publications:
- Van den Eede P, Erhart A, Van der Auwera G, Van Overmeir C, Thang ND, Hung le X, Anné J, D’Alessandro U. High complexity of Plasmodium vivax infections in symptomatic patients from a rural community in central Vietnam detected by microsatellite genotyping. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2010;82(2):223-7.
- Grietens KP, Gies S, Coulibaly SO, Ky C, Somda J, Toomer E, Muela Ribera J, D’Alessandro U. Bottlenecks for high coverage of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy: the case of adolescent pregnancies in rural Burkina Faso. PLoS One 2010. 6;5(8). pii: e12013.
- Thang ND, Erhart A, Speybroeck N, Xa NX, Thanh NN, Ky PV, Hung le X, Thuan le K, Coosemans M, D’Alessandro U. Long-Lasting Insecticidal Hammocks for controlling forest malaria: a community-based trial in a rural area of central Vietnam. PLoS One. 2009 Oct 7;4(10)
- Bassat Q, Mulenga M, Tinto H, Piola P, Borrmann S, Menéndez C, Nambozi M, Valéa I, Nabasumba C, Sasi P, Bacchieri A, Corsi M, Ubben D, Talisuna A, D’Alessandro U. Dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine and artemether-lumefantrine for treating uncomplicated malaria in African children: a randomised, non-inferiority trial. PLoS One. 2009 Nov 17;4(11).
- Van Geertruyden JP, Mulenga M, Chalwe V, Michael N, Moerman F, Mukwamataba D, Colebunders R, D’Alessandro U. Impact of HIV-1 infection on the hematological recovery after clinical malaria. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2009 Feb 1;50(2):200-5.
