Professor Halidou Tinto

With a background in PharmD, Professor Halidou Tinto obtained his postgraduate diploma in Biology from the University of Ouagadougou in 1998. He worked as a research associate at Centre Muraz in Burkina Faso where he was involved in the epidemiological surveillance of malaria drug resistance. He proceeded to work at the Royal Danish School of Pharmacy as a research fellow in the development of alternative medicine against malaria. In 2001, he was recruited as a research associate at the Institute for Health Sciences Research (IRSS). From 2003 to 2006, he worked as a PhD fellow in Medical Sciences at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, Belgium where he studied the epidemiology of malaria drug resistance in Burkina Faso and the mechanism of the resistance in Rwanda. After obtaining his PhD, he returned to Burkina Faso where he created the Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro (CRUN) in 2009. He was appointed as the Scientific Director of Centre Muraz from 2013 to 2014. Currently he is the Regional Director of IRSS and is a Professor associate at the Nazi Boni University of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso where he teaches the module on clinical trials. He is the author and co-author of 175 publications in international peer-reviewed journals.

Professor Tinto has more than 15 years’ experience in clinical trials and a strong track-record in international collaborations. The unit he created provides a well-equipped GCP-compliant clinical research platform for testing new interventions in the environment where they are likely to be deployed. As the head of the CRUN, he conducted (as PI or co-PI) in collaboration with several academic institutions and pharmaceuticals companies (GSK, Sanofi, Novartis, Sigma Tau, Shin Poong Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, etc) several phase 2, 3 and 4 clinical trials at ICH/GCP standards including the GSK phase 3 malaria vaccine trial (RTS,S). Because of his experience as PI or co-PI in different fields of clinical trials and his experience in evaluating the conduct of trials as Clinical Research Associate or DSMB/Steering Committees member, he has the skills for project development, implementation and evaluation. In addition, as member of several boards (EDCTP SAC, Expert for Africa region of the EU malaria Funds SAC, WWARN SAC, MALVAC, Antimalarial Pregnancy Resigtry SAB) and several networks (Malaria in Pregnancy consortium, Malactres consortium, Indepth Network, Malaria Clinical Trial Alliance), he is aware of more recent developments in global health research and its implications.