Prof. Umberto D'Alessandro (MD, MSc, PhD) has a long working experience in Africa, first as a clinician (Benin and Kenya) and later as a clinical epidemiologist (The Gambia). 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 Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium in 1996 where he was, until the end of 2010, was the head of the Epidemiology Unit. There, he developed a research program around three themes: antimalarial treatment, including drug resistance, malaria prevention, and the P. vivax in vitro cycle, implemented in several malaria endemic countries, e.g. Uganda, Burkina Faso, Benin, Vietnam, Peru, etc.

In 2011, Professor D’Alessandro joined the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia (MRCG) as theme leader of disease control and elimination. In January 2014, he was appointed director of the MRCG. His research program on malaria at the MRCG is built around questions related to malaria elimination/eradication.