Lucilla Steinaa

Lucilla Steinaa

Principal Scientist

Research at ILRI: ​I am leading the vaccine research against African swine fever (ASF), where we currently have two main lines of research. We are employing CRISPR CAS9 editing and synthetic biology to make modifications in the ASFV genome in order to attenuate the virus for a live vaccine. We also have a project with the aim of making a subunit vaccine against ASFV, where we down-select antigens from the approximately 165 genes for use in combinations. Besides African swine fever, we aim at producing an improved vaccine for East Cost fever (ECF) which is the most important cattle disease in East Africa with components of identifying a suitable delivery systems, discovery of new CTL and antibody targets, sequencing of additional parasite strains, stage specific expression profiles etc. Finally, I am also involved in a Blutongue consortium with the aim of characterizing circulating strains in Africa (molecular epidemiology).

Research Interests: Vaccinology, immunology, infectious diseases, synthetic biology, genome editing

Background: I have worked at ILRI since 2009 with the diseases decribed above. Before this, since 1992, I worked in a Danish hospital and later in the Biotech sector in Denmark as research scientist, senior scientist and project manager in the field of human vaccine development (auto-vaccines) and generation of therapeutic antibodies for treatment of various diseases/pathogens (viral and cancer). Beside this, I was involved in various aspects of technology development projects leading to platform technologies and patents. I recieved my PhD in 2001 in cellular immunology from University of Copenhagen, Denmark.  

 

Publications:

​For full list of scientific published papers go to ORCID no: 0003-3691-3971 or use the link above


 

My Projects

Pigs in Vietnam

ACTIVE

New technologies for African swine fever (Vax4ASF)

My Publications

Sensitive and specific exonuclease III-assisted recombinase-aided amplification colorimetric assay for rapid detection of nucleic acids

  • Zhou, Y.
  • Zhang, J.
  • Sun, H.
  • Tao, D.
  • Xu, B.
  • Han, X.
  • Ren, R.
  • Ruan, J.
  • Steinaa, Lucilla
  • Hemmink, Johanneke D.
  • Han Jianlin
  • Li, X.
  • Xu, J.
  • Zhao, S.
  • Xie, S.
  • Zhao, C.
ILRI publication cover

Testing a pool of antigens for protection against African swine fever virus using viral vectors

  • Steinaa, Lucilla
  • Svitek, Nicholas

Co-deletion of A238L and EP402R genes from a genotype IX African swine fever virus results in partial attenuation and protection in swine

  • Abkallo, Hussein M.
  • Hemmink, Johanneke D.
  • Oduor, Bernard
  • Khazalwa, Emmanuel M.
  • Svitek, Nicholas
  • Assad-Garcia, N.
  • Khayumbi, Jeremiah
  • Fuchs, W.
  • Vashee, S.
  • Steinaa, Lucilla

Deletion of the CD2v gene from the genome of ASFV-Kenya-IX-1033 partially reduces virulence and induces protection in pigs

  • Hemmink, Johanneke D.
  • Khazalwa, Emmanuel M.
  • Abkallo, Hussein M.
  • Oduor, Bernard
  • Khayumbi, Jeremiah
  • Svitek, Nicholas
  • Henson, Sonal P.
  • Blome, S.
  • Keil, G.
  • Bishop, Richard P.
  • Steinaa, Lucilla

The African swine fever isolate ASFV-Kenya-IX-1033 is highly virulent and stable after propagation in the wild boar cell line WSL

  • Hemmink, Johanneke D.
  • Abkallo, Hussein M.
  • Henson, Sonal P.
  • Khazalwa, Emmanuel M.
  • Oduor, Bernard
  • Lacasta, Anna
  • Okoth, Edward A.
  • Riitho, Victor
  • Fuchs, W.
  • Bishop, Richard P.
  • Steinaa, Lucilla

Systematic determination of TCR-antigen and peptide-MHC binding kinetics among field variants of a Theileria parva polymorphic CTL epitope

  • Svitek, Nicholas
  • Saya, Rosemary
  • Houshuang Zhang
  • Nene, Vishvanath M.
  • Steinaa, Lucilla