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Ensoli Barbara, M.D. Ph.D, Prof..
Dr. Ensoli is Director of the National AIDS Center at the Italian National Institute of Health ( ISS).
She has been working on HIV since 1984 both as a physician and a scientist. In 1986 she joined the Laboratory of Tumour Cell Biology (LTCB), National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, where she initiated studies on HIV focusing on the role of HIV-1 Tat in virus replication and in the pathogenesis of AIDS, opening new fields of investigation with major implications for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.
In 1996 Dr. Ensoli moved back to Italy as the Director of Retrovirus Division to ISS, where she started an HIV vaccine program focused on candidates based on Tat protein or tat-DNA, which were found to be capable of inhibiting virus replication and AIDS development in monkeys. As a result of these efforts, ISS has filed a number of patent applications on HIV/AIDS vaccine candidates, and has successfully completed two phase I trials, preventive and therapeutic, with a Tat-based vaccine candidate.
The scientific excellence of Dr. Ensoli is documented by more than 300 publications in peer-reviewed international journals. In addition to heading the National AIDS Center at ISS, Dr. Ensoli participates in several major international scientific projects such as bilateral research programs sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda for preparatory studies for phase II/III vaccine trials; the Italian Concerted Action on HIV/AIDS Vaccine development (ICAV), which is composed of 50 intra and extramural groups ; the Italy-USA (ISS-NIH) collaborative agreement for the "development of a vaccine against HIV/AIDS"; the ISS/Novartis industrial agreement for the development of a vaccine against AIDS. She is the coordinator of AVIP , a major EU funded clinical program comprising 20 centers of excellence in AIDS vaccine research in Europe and Africa. Dr. Ensoli is a member of numerous prestigious scientific committees and societies including the WHO-UNAIDS vaccine advisory temporary committee, and the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO). She is also the vicepresident of the Science Committee of UNESCO and a delegate for Italy to the United Nations for the Global Fund for AIDS.
CV & PUBLICATIONS
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