Dr Vasee Moorthy, MD, PhD

Senior Advisor R&D, Research for Health Science Division, World Health Organization

Dr Vasee Moorthy MD PhD, is an infectious diseases physician, T cell immunologist, clinical trialist and product developer. He is a senior advisor in WHO’s Science Division in Geneva. He is the cross-cutting lead at WHO for processes linking R&D with access to medical products, and has been involved in many WHO research projects. In his 10 years at WHO he has acted as its lead for vaccine R&D, was WHO’s malaria vaccine focal point, has overseen guidelines development processes, was instrumental in development of the highly effective Ebola Vaccine and has led WHO’s work in clinical trials policy and research data sharing. Prior to joining WHO, he worked linking research with public health in Kwazulu/Natal, South Africa (1996-1998) led some of the first DNA and recombinant virus vaccine trials in Europe and The Gambia, Africa (1999-2003); and led global selection of clinical trial sites for PATH, a US-based NGO (2003-2005). He has a first-class honours degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, UK, a clinical medicine degree from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in molecular T cell immunology of malaria from the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford.