Riccardo Cortese (Siena, Italy, March 29, 1944 – Basel, Switzerland, April 27, 2017) was an Italian scientist, entrepreneur, and innovator in the field of gene expression, drug discovery and genetic vaccines.

His work led to the development of novel therapeutic strategies for the prevention and cure of viral infections, including HIV, HCV, Ebola and RSV.

He pioneered a novel platform technology based on simian adenoviral vectors for prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines, and authored more than 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals in the field of gene expression, transcriptional control, molecular virology and immunology.

Shortly after, he joined the lab of Bruce Ames at the University of California Berkeley as a PhD student, where he studied transcriptional regulation and RNA post-transcriptional modification in bacteria.

[citation needed] With Okairos, Cortese made major scientific contributions, establishing a successful pipeline of candidate vaccines against HCV, malaria, RSV and Ebola.