Dr. Clemens H.M. Kocken is Chairman of the Department of Parasitology at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC), Rijswijk and has over 30 years of experience in malaria research. After his PhD at Groningen University (NL), he held a postdoctoral position for five years at Nijmegen University, where he worked on malaria transmission-blocking vaccine development. In 1994 he joined the Parasitology Department at BPRC, to work on malaria vaccine development.
The research of the Department of Parasitology is focused on developing vaccines and drugs against malaria and tuberculosis, using non-human primate models where necessary. Current research topics include vaccine efficacy evaluation and immune correlates of TB, development of new drugs active against malaria hypnozoites and studying the biology of various stages of the malaria life-cycle and of parasite-host interactions, to find better leads for vaccine and drug development. Clemens has (co-)authored over 120 peer-reviewed research papers.