Tuesday 30th March 2021
Vincenzo Cerullo is a professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Head of the Drug Research Program, HiLIFE fellow and Supervisor of the Translational Immunology Programme at the University of Helsinki. His primary focus is the eradication of cancer using immunovirotherapy (IVT) techniques and heads the IVT lab at University of Helsinki to pursue his research interests. His strong Biotechnology and Pharmacy background has contributed to his ground-breaking research. Since his PhD at the University of Naples, Federico II and a postdoc at Baylor College of Medicine, Vince has raised more than 5 million euros for research, produced tens of high impact scientific papers and patents and has co-founded a multimillion dollar spin-off company together with the University of Helsinki (VALO Therapeutics). Vince has been a recipient of numerous scientific awards and honours including the Outstanding Young Investigator award in 2014 by the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and the Excellence in Research award by the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy in 2015. Beyond his research pursuits, Vince is also involved in science dissemination, through Slush Y Science and presented on the importance of creativity in science at a TEDxHelsinkiUniversity talk in 2017.