Professor Umberto D'Alessandro

Prof. Umberto D'Alessandro graduated in Medicine & Surgery at the University of Pisa, Italy, and then obtained both his MSc and PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, in 1990 and 1996, respectively. He worked as a clinician in Benin and Kenya. In 1990, he joined the MRC Unit The Gambia as clinical epidemiologist and carried out the evaluation of the Gambian National Program on insecticide-treated bed nets that showed the intervention decreased mortality among children by 25%. 

In 1996, Professor D'Alessandro joined the Department of Parasitology at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium, where he headed the Epidemiology Unit until December 2010. There, he developed a research programme around 3 themes: antimalarial treatment, including drug resistance; malaria prevention; and the P. vivax in vitro cycle, implemented in several malaria endemic countries, such as Uganda, Burkina Faso, Benin, Vietnam, Peru, etc.

In 2011, Professor D'Alessandro joined the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia (MRCG) as Head of the Disease Control and Elimination Research Theme. In January 2014, he was appointed Director of the MRCG. His research program in The Gambia is built around questions related to malaria elimination/eradication.

Last updated: 3 February 2021