Mahamadou A Thera, MD, MPH, PhD, FAAS, is the Scientific Director of the Bandiagara Malaria Program (BMP) at the Malaria Research and Training (MRTC) of the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, in Mali. Since 2008, he is Professor of Parasitology-Mycology at the Faculty of Medicine and Odonto-Stomatology of Bamako.
He was principal investigator of several clinical trials that assessed blood-stage malaria vaccine candidates and malaria drugs. His group established for the first time, proof of concept of the allele specific protective efficacy of a blood-stage malaria vaccine against clinical malaria in a malaria endemic country. Pr Thera also directed several epidemiological studies of malaria in Mali.
He has been member of several scientific advisory committees including the WHO advisory body for malaria vaccines MALVAC and JTEG, the European Vaccine Initiative Scientific Advisory Committee (EVI-SAC), that he chaired during the period 2015-2017. He has co-authored more than 110 manuscripts indexed in PubMed.
Pr Thera holds a MD from the Institute of Medicine and Pharmacy of Jassy, (Romania, 1986), a MPH from University of Bamako (Mali, 1996), a MSc in Biostatistics and Conduct of Clinical Trials from University of Paris 6 (France, 2003) and a PhD in Parasitology-Mycology from University of Bamako’s Institute of Training and Applied Research (ISFRA) (Mali, 2015).
Dr Thera was in 2000, the first Fellow of the WHO/TDR Clinical Research and Development Fellowship, initially supported by Glaxo SmithKline Biologicals and TDR. This fellowship turned into a successful capacity building program in Clinical research and product development for developing countries, thanks to substantial funding received from the Gates Foundation and EDCTP.
As Professor at the FMOS, Pr Thera contribute to train undergraduate MDs, and PharmDs, post graduate MSc and PhD students, in Mali and in the neighboring countries.
Pr Thera is member of the Académie des Sciences du Mali (ASM) since 2018 and a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences since 2020.
Dr Thera’s areas of expertise include malaria epidemiology, malaria pathogenesis, clinical trials, product clinical research and development, ethics, parasitic diseases.
Actual work: Has two main directions. First direction addresses issues related to human host-malaria parasites interactions. It focuses on understanding the role of variant PfEMP1s antigens in the pathogenesis of severe malaria, either cerebral malaria or severe malaria anemia. This is done by analyzing seroreactivity profiles to microarrays of antigens printed on slides, of children aged under five years in a case-control study of severe malaria. This project was supported by the NIH R01AI099628, awarded to Prof Thera in 2014-2020. The second direction of work is focused on the clinical development vaccines against malaria and viral infections. The malaria vaccine candidate derived from P. falciparum merozoite surface protein 3, the MSP3-CRM candidate manufactured by Vac-4-All is being tested in a series of clinical trials to demonstrate the proof of concept of its safety, immunogenicity and efficacy against clinical malaria.
Selected publications
(List of Published Work in MyBibliography: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1VMcnFoclLkks/bibliography/public/)
- Thera MA, Kone AK, Tangara B, Diarra E, et al., School-aged children based seasonal malaria chemoprevention using artesunate-amodiaquine in Mali. Parasite Epidemiology and Control. 2018. doi.org/10.1016/j.parepi.2018.02.001
- Djimde A, Ranque S, Thera MA. Building a center of excellence in biomedical research in an unfavorable environment: the Malaria Research and Training Center in Mali. Med Sante Trop. 2019. doi: 10.1684/mst.2019.0938. PubMed PMID: 31884979.
- Malaria Genomic Epidemiology Network, Band G, Rockett KA, Spencer CC, Kwiatkowski DP. A novel locus of resistance to severe malaria in a region of ancient balancing selection. Nature. 2015. doi:10.1038/nature15390.
- Thera MA, Doumbo OK, Coulibaly D, Plowe CV et al., A field trial to assess a blood-stage malaria vaccine. N Engl J Med. 2011. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1008115.
- Tishkoff SA, Reed FA, Friedlander FR, Ehret C, Thera MA, Wambebe C, Weber JL, Williams SM et al., The genetic structure and history of Africans and African Americans. 2009. doi:10.1126/science.1172257.
