Mahamadou Thera

Mahamadou A Thera, MD, MPH, PhD, is Scientific Director of the Bandiagara Malaria Project (BMP), an MRTC research program that conducts complex research on the pathogenesis of simple and severe malaria, host-parasitic interactions, clinical trials of vaccines and malaria drugs. Under Dr. Thera's leadership, the BMP was recognized by ANDI (African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation), as a Centre of Excellence for Clinical Development of Antimalarial Products in 2011 after a competition that attracted more than 117 applications from Africa, and resulted in the selection of 31 other centers across Africa that have been awarded the ANDI Centre of Excellence label. Associate Professor of Parasitology-Mycology at the Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Odonto-Stomatology since 2008 promotion of the African Council for High Education (CAMES) aggregation competition, and appointed Full Professor at the Niamey Review Committee in 2018, he contributes to the training of new generations of medical and pharmacy doctors, through the teachings of the Parasitology-Mycology at FMOS, University Kankou Moussa (UKM); and since 2014, through teaching research methodology to students in the 6th year of Medicine at UKM. An internationally recognized expert in the development of malaria vaccines, he has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of several institutions including the WHO Scientific Committee on Malaria Vaccine, MALVAC and JTEG, European Vaccine Initiative (EVI), of which he has been a member since 2010, and chairman of the scientific committee from January 2015 to December 2017. Dr. Thera is currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the West African Health Research Network (ROARES), MIM (Multilateral Malaria Initiative) and also serves on Data Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMB) for several clinical trials of drugs and vaccines against malaria and Ebola virus disease. Dr Thera is member of the Academy of Science of Mali since April 2018. Dr. Thera has published more than 100 articles in international journals indexed in Pubmed. He offers his skills as a reader for several newspapers including the national journal Mali Medical, but also other journals such as Black African Medicine, Lancet Infectious Diseases, JID, PLoS One, American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (AMJTH), Infectious Diseases of Poverty (IDOP), Malaria Research and Treatment (MRT), Tropical Medicine and International Health (TMIH). Dr. Thera holds a M.D. in General Medicine from the Institute of Medicine and Pharmacy in Jassy, Romania (1986); a Master in Public Health from the Bamako National School of Medicine (ENMP, 1997); a Master in Biostatistics and Clinical Trials Practices from CESAM/University of Paris 6, (2003); a Specialization degree (CES) in Medical and Technical Parasitology, from University Cheick Anta Diop, Dakar (2003); a Master II in Medical Parasitology and Entomology from ISFRA/University of Bamako (2004); a PhD in Parasitology-Mycology from ISFRA/University of Bamako (2015). In 2000, he was the first Fellow in a training program initiated by WHO/TDR and GSK-Bio with the aim of establishing in Africa the skills to conduct clinical trials to international standards. This program completely transformed the field of clinical trials in Africa in the decade that followed and brought Africa into the world of Research and Product Development. Dr. Thera's expertise covers malaria epidemiology, malaria pathogenesis, clinical trials, product research and development, medical ethics and parasitic diseases, research methodology.