Maria Yazdanbakhsh

Maria Yazdanbakhsh is a Professor at Leiden University (The Netherlands) and heads the Department of Parasitology at Leiden University Medical Center. She serves as a board member of the Leiden University Center of Infectious Diseases, scientific coordinator of the Leiden Controlled Human Infection Center (L-CHIC), and president of the Dutch Society for Parasitology. Her work bridges complex biomedical research with field studies in low/middle-income countries (LMICs), focusing on host-parasite interactions and immune regulation.

• BSc, King’s College London
• MSc, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• PhD, University of Amsterdam

Her research challenges the immunological basis of the Hygiene Hypothesis by demonstrating how chronic parasitic infections regulate inflammation linked to allergic disorders and insulin resistance. She pioneered the identification of parasite-derived molecules with therapeutic potential for inflammatory diseases and innovates human infection models alongside high-dimensional immunological analysis.

She has received numerous honors, including the Delphine Parrott Lecture (2020), Merck Sharp & Dohme Award (1997), and Marie Curie Scholarship (1987). Her work has been foundational in understanding compromised vaccine responses in rural LMIC populations through comparative immunological profiling.