Professor Francois Nosten

Francois Nosten trained as a medical doctor in France. He joined Médecins Sans Frontières in 1982, and worked for the organization in emergency humanitarian aid projects in Equatorial Guinea, Uganda and Thailand until 1986.

In 1986 he joined the Mahidol-Oxford Research Unit (MORU),a  research collaboration between the University of Oxford and the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, to lead its field unit along the Thai-Burmese border, the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU). As Director of the SMRU since 1986, he has overseen the conduct numerous clinical studies on the burden, the treatment and the control of malaria and other infectious diseases affecting Burmese refugees and Burmese migrants living along the Thai-Burmese border. Under Francois leadership, the SMRU has spearheaded development of new malaria treatment strategies, notably the artemisinin-based combination therapies that are now the mainstay of national treatment programs in all malaria endemic countries around the world.