Professor Chetan Chitnis

Professor Chetan Chitnis is recognized as a leader in basic and translational research on malaria. His work has focused on trying to understand the molecular basis of pathogenic mechanisms such as red blood cell (RBC) invasion by malaria parasites. His laboratory has made key discoveries in understanding the molecular interactions between parasite ligands and host receptors that mediate RBC invasion by Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax. He has used a combination of laboratory based molecular approaches and field based epidemiology studies to identify and validate invasion related parasite proteins as blood stage malaria vaccine candidates. He has developed methods to produce and formulate such malaria vaccine candidates, which are currently being tested in clinical trials. His laboratory also studies signalling mechanisms that regulate processes such as timely secretion of malaria parasite ligands during RBC invasion. These basic studies provide novel targets for the development of drugs to block host cell invasion and parasite growth. 

Following doctoral studies in Biophysics at University of California, Berkeley and post-doctoral research on malaria at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Professor Chitnis returned to India where he established a highly successful research group on malaria at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi. With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, he established the Malaria Vaccine Development Program (MVDP), which undertakes clinical development of experimental malaria vaccines in India. Professor Chitnis was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (2008) and Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi (2014). He received the prestigious Infosys Prize for Biological Sciences (2010) and Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize for Medical Sciences (2004), two of the highest prizes for life sciences in India. He joined Institut Pasteur, Paris in 2014 as Professor in the Department of Parasites and Insect Vectors and Head of the Malaria Parasite Biology and Vaccines Unit. In addition to establishing a research unit for basic and translational research on malaria at Institut Pasteur, Professor Chitnis has taught regularly in the Pasteur Vaccinology Course and has led the development of an online course on malaria that reaches a wide audience of students and researchers across the world.