Pr. Giuseppe Pantaleo, M.D.

Prof. Pantaleo received his degree in medicine in 1980 from the University of Bari, Italy, and in 1983 he Board certified in Clinical Hematology at University of Bari.

In 1982, Dr. Pantaleo was awarded with an EMBO Fellowship at Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne Branch, Switzerland.

His scientific career in the field of immunology began in 1982 working in the group of Human Immunology headed by Prof. Lorenzo Moretta at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Pantaleo was involved in the phenotypic and functional characterization of T lymphocytes.

In 1989, Dr. Pantaleo joined the Laboratory of Immunoregulation, NIAID, NIH, directed by Dr. A.S Fauci. During the stay at NIH, Dr. Pantaleo developed a successful research program in the field of immunopathogenesis of HIV infection and made seminal observations in the delineation of the dysfunction of HIV-specific T cell responses and in the identification of the anatomic compartments serving as major reservoir for HIV.

The results of these studies were published in Nature in March 1993 (G. Pantaleo et al. 362:355, 1993). This paper was the second most cited paper in Research in 1993.

In 1996, Prof. Pantaleo moved to Lausanne University Hospital and since 1999 he is the Chief of the Department of Immunology and Allergy. Prof. Pantaleo has been a leading figure in the field of HIV vaccines and since 2007 is the Executive Director of the Swiss Vaccine Research Institute.

In the recent years he has developed a program in the oncology field with the development of a novel anti-PD1 antibody and novel bispecific antibodies targeting different immunological mechanisms with the objective of potentiating the immune response and/or reducing immunotoxicity.

Prof. Pantaleo is author and co-author of more than 400 scientific publications.