Dr Sergio Nishioka

Sergio Nishioka graduated in Medicine (1979) and did his residency in Infectious Diseases (1982) at Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil. He has a Master’s degree (MSc) in Epidemiology (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, 1990), a Master’s degree (MSc) in Infectious Diseases (Universidade de São Paulo, 1993), and a PhD in Epidemiology (McGill University, Canada, 2001). He worked as a lecturer at Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Brazil (from 1985 to 2003), was in charge of new drug registration and clinical trial authorization from 2003 to 2008, and, later on, of post-marketing surveillance of drugs and medical devices at the Brazilian national regulatory authority, Anvisa.

From 2008 to 2013, he worked at the World Health Organization (WHO), in Geneva on clinical evaluation of vaccines for prequalification. While there he was also a member of the WHO Research Ethics Committee. From 2013 to 2017 he worked at the Brazilian Ministry of Health in Brasilia on clinical research and with communicable disease surveillance (including most of the vaccine-preventable diseases). After his retirement, in December 2017, he has worked as a consultant/temporary adviser for WHO (clinical evaluation of vaccines for prequalification), Anvisa (clinical evaluation of drugs and variations), PAHO and the Brazilian Ministry of Health (different topics on tropical diseases). Since 2020 he has been involved, still as a technical adviser/consultant, with capacity building activities on COVID-19 for health professionals, for Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz Brasilia), and with clinical evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines for Emergency Use Listing (EUL), for WHO.

Sergio Nishioka was the chair of the Developing Country Vaccine Regulators Network (DCVRN) (2004 to 2006) and participated over the years in several working groups on vaccines, clinical trials, and communicable diseases. He is currently a member of the Working Group of Vaccine Prioritization for the Solidarity Trial, WHO R&D Blueprint.