Ali Salanti
Professor
Centre for Medical Parasitology, University of Copenhagen
Biography
Translational science is the fuel for my passion for research. I was the first to define the antigen (VAR2CSA) responsible for malaria in pregnant women. Early in my career I decided to devote my research to prepare VAR2CSA for human clinical trials. And recently we finalized the clinical Phase Ia trial in Germany and Ib trial in Benin. Five years ago we discovered the seminal finding that the molecule the malaria parasites bind to in the placenta is also present on all tested tumors and absent from normal tissue. And we are now also embarked on a project to develop this this concept into novel cancer therapeutic and diagnostic compounds. It has become evident that recombinant soluble antigens are not good as vaccines. It was also evident that that the HPV vaccine is an extraordinary exception. In the understanding of this we have developed a virus like particle platform that can position any antigen onto the surface of particle of the same size as HPV. We are now using this platform.
