Dr.C Yury Valdés Balbín

Ocupation: Deputy Director

Twitter: @BalbinYury

He graduated in Chemistry from the University of Havana (2000) and is an Associate Researcher. He began his working life at the Center for the Study of Synthetic Antigens of the University of Havana (2000-2008) as a researcher. Subsequently, he was Head of the Glyco-conjugation Department at the Center for Biomolecular Chemistry (CQB) (2008 – 2013). He was responsible for the production process of the synthetic adhesive for the Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine. He is the Deputy Director of the Finlay Vaccine Institute (2015 – present). He is part of the Hib Vaccine Author Collective, a project leader for the conjugate vaccines against Streptococcus pneumoniae, and one of the three leading scientists for the specific vaccines against COVID-19 (SOBERANA). He has won the Annual Award of the Cuban Academy of Sciences four times (2001, 2004, 2016, 2018) and the National Annual Award of Public Health (2018). He also received  the Relevant Award from the University of Havana for the "Development of the first human vaccine with a synthetic antigen" (2004), the Award for the Applied Result of the Greatest Contribution to Social Development for the "Cuban Vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type b registered under the name of Quimi-Hib" (2007) and the Award for Best Scientific Article (2005). He has completed doctoral research stays at Leiden University, Netherlands (2016). He has more than 18 articles presented in international journals and more than 20 in scientific events.