Biography – Dr. Flavio Salazar Onfray

Dr. Flavio Salazar Onfray
Profesor Titular, Facultad de Medicina, Profesor invitado en el Departamento de Medicina en Solna del Instituto Karolinska

FLAVIO SALAZAR ONFRAY. Bachelor in Sciences (Biology) (Uppsala University, Sweden 1992) Doctor in Sciences (Ph.D.) (Karolinska Institute, Sweden 1998) (Date of birth: October 7, 1965). Current position: Full Professor (2011-2023), Faculty of Medicine, Visiting Professor at the Department of Medicine in Solna of the Karolinska Institute. Former Vice Chancellor for Research and Development (2014-2022), Universidad de Chile. Former Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation (2022). Corresponding member of the Chilean Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Flavio Salazar Onfray works in the Immunology Disciplinary Program of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile and is a visiting professor at the Solna Department of Medicine at the Karolinska Institute. Dr. Salazar’s interest has focused on various aspects of tumor immunology, from basic research to clinical trials. Dr. Salazar has led a multidisciplinary group that conducted Phase I and Phase I/II clinical trials in Chile for cancer immunotherapy generating two vaccines: Dendritic cell TAPCells and Lycellvax using allogeneic tumor lysates and Chilean loco protein. From 2005 to 2022 he was Deputy Director of the Millennium Institute on Immunology and Immunotherapy. Dr. Salazar was president of the Chilean Society of Immunology (2007-2009) and president of the Latin American Association of Immunology Societies (ALAI) (2008-2010). He founded two spin-off companies, Oncobiomed in 2002, dedicated to the transfer of cellular immunotherapy technology, and Bionex in 2007, dedicated to advising basic scientists in the design of R&D applications. From 2014 to March 2022, he was Vice President of Research and Development at the University of Chile, where he promoted institutional internationalization, through binational forums with France, Italy, Germany, China, Japan, and especially through the academic platform for scientific cooperation ACCESS. Chile-Sweden. He also led institutional advances in innovation, artistic creation, gender equality and transdisciplinary research. He generated an innovation regulation that is still in force, promoted the science, innovation and artistic creation policy approved by the university senate, installed a Gender Unit in the Research Vice-Rector’s Office, supported transdisciplinary research initiatives and inaugurated the Arts Forums. He was Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation from March to September 2022. Since June 2023 he is a corresponding member of the Chilean Academy of Sciences.

 

Lines of research.

The main interest of the group led by Dr. Salazar has focused on various aspects of tumor immunology, from basic research to clinical trials. Dr. Salazar described the effect of the cytokine IL-10 on the inhibition of tumor antigen presentation. How tumors could use their expression to evade the immune system (published in J. Exp. Med. 1994 and J. Immunol. 1997-1998). Using a short peptide homologous to the functional domain of IL-10, he demonstrated that the IL-10 peptide could affect tumor antigen presentation and DC maturation (J. Immunol. 2004, Immunobiology 2011). He also identified and characterized new melanoma antigens derived from the Melanocortin 1 receptor, which he showed to be overexpressed in melanoma; British J Cancer. (2005), useful for the diagnosis of ocular melanoma; IOVPS, 2007). For the past fifteen years, Dr. Salazar has organized and led a multidisciplinary group of scientists, including physicians, oncology and immunology specialists, along with biologists and biochemists, who built a clean facility for the manipulation of human cells and performed the first Phase I and Phase I/II clinical trial in Chile for cancer immunotherapy. The results of these clinical studies were published in recognized international journals such as Clin. Exp. immunol. (2005); J.Clin. Oncol. (2009); clin. Cancer Res (2011), Cancer Immunol. Immunoster. (2012); Brit J Cancer (2013); BMC Cancer (2018); Oncotarget (2018); and J. Immunother. Cancer (2020), Brit J. Cancer (2023). He and his group invented an original method to produce dendritic cells ex vivo protected by an international patent (PCT/EP2008/062909) and proposed a new melanoma vaccine based on tumor lysates (PCT2019/US62/814756). He also described gap junction (GJ) interactions between human immune cells and tumors J. Immunol. (2007), J. Immunol. (2011), J. Immunol.(2015), Brit J Cancer (2015); Front. Immunol. (2017) and Int J Mol Sci. (2020). Currently, he collaborates with the Austral University and the Base Hospital of Valdivia in the study of the biological aspects of gallbladder cancer; Diagnostics (2021), Cancers (2023), and together with Hospital Salvador and the Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana, he is working on basic aspects of whole tumor cell vaccines, and the innate and adaptive immune response induced by vaccines.