Professor, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore

• Speaker, Immunology, Paediatrics and Medicine Symposium, 17 Sep 2021    

Assoc Prof Antonio Bertoletti is an expert in the field of viral hepatitis, with a specific interest in the immunopathogenesis of HBV infection since 1991. He spent two years at The Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla) characterising for the first time the Hepatitis B virus (HBV) specific cytotoxic T cell response in man, before continuing his study of human HBV specific T cells as a Clinician Scientist at the University of Parma. 

In 2006, he moved to Singapore where he was appointed Director of Infection and Immunity Programme at the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, A*STAR until 2013. He then served as Professor at the Emerging Viral Disease Programme at Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore. He also maintains an Adjunct Position at the Singapore Immunology Network, A*STAR. He won the Singapore Translational Research Awards for two terms in 2013 and 2018.

In 2015, he founded Lion TCR Pte, a biotech company developing immune-based treatments for virus-related cancers (HBV-HCC and EBV related malignancies) and chronic viral infections. The company has been the first to initiate and run clinical trials (Phase I and II) for the treatment of HBV-related HCC relapses in liver transplant patients and in primary HCC in Singapore and China.

His current research focuses on the development of new immunological based therapies (TCR-redirected T cells) for the treatment of HBV chronic infection and Hepatocellular carcinoma and on the characterisation of antiviral Immunity in chronic HBV patients. In the last 6 months, after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, his laboratory has been actively involved in the characterisation of SARS-COV2 specific T cell immune response in COVID-19 and SARS convalescent and healthy individuals.