Luigi Buonaguro | MD, Innovative Immunological Models Unit
National Cancer Institute

Dr. Luigi Buonaguro is the Director of the Innovative Immunological Models at the National Cancer Institute - IRCCS “Pascale ”, Naples – Italy. He is an expert in identification and characterization of tumor antigens for preventive/therapeutic cancer vaccine development. His focus is mostly on shared tumor-associated antigens for off-the-shelf vaccines. Based on this approach, he has coordinated an European Consortium for the development and clinical evaluation in a Phase I clinical trial of the HEPAVAC therapeutic cancer vaccine for primary hepatocellular carcinoma (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03203005). In parallel, he is pioneering the homology between tumor antigens (TAAs) and virus/bacteria-derived antigens (MoAs) (molecular mimicry). In particular, he is contributing to understand the role and cross-reactive potency of the immune response elicited by MoAs as anti-tumor immunity in order to develop next-generation preventive/therapeutic cancer vaccines. According to Expertscape (https://www.expertscape.com), he is in 1st place in Italy, 10th in Europe and among the top 30 Scientists in the World for the item "Cancer VACCINE".