Mayowa Ojo OWOLABI, Nigerian, is Professor of Neurology, and pioneer Director, Centre for Genomic and Precision Medicine, University of Ibadan. Dean, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, University of Ibadan, Nigeria (2018-2022). He is African Regional Director, World Hypertension League; Foundation Co-Chair, African Stroke Organization and Chair, WHO- World Stroke Organization-Lancet Commission on Stroke. He is the pioneer Regional Vice-President, World Federation of NeuroRehabilitation (sub-Saharan Africa);
He is the 2021 winner of the World Stroke Organization global Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Research in Stroke and Rapporteur, World Health Organization Technical Advisory Group (Research and Innovations) on Non-Communicable Diseases. A Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, Royal College of Physicians, Academy of Medical Specialties, Nigerian Academy of Science and African Academy of Sciences. He proposed the stroke quadrangle comprising stroke epidemiological surveillance and research network, prevention, acute care and rehabilitation.
He leads the largest study of stroke in Africa and the first e-Surveillance system for NCDs in Africa. He also leads the Neurology Revolution Expert Group with over 40 international neurology organizations championing the cause of brain health globally https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(22)00394-5/fulltext?rss=yes. He is the WHO consultant for the domestication of the WHO Intersectoral Global Action Plan against Epilepsy and other neurological disorders. He also leads the call against hypertension in Africa with the World Hypertension League. He developed the first Afrocentric stroke riskometer model.
He has led and leads multiple NIH funded research (U54, U01, R01), surveillance and training grants(D43) (>20 million dollars; U54HG007479, 1R01NS107900, U01NS079179, R01NS115944, R13NS115395, D43TW012030) including the largest study of stroke in Africa and the CHAIR resource (>55,000 participants across 13 African countries; and the ARISES HDSS with over100,000 participants). He has over 340 publications in peer reviewed journals including Lancet, Nature, Science, New England Journal of Medicine, with Google Scholar citation >84,000 and h index of 73. He is an associate editor of five high impact Neurology journals. He serves as the project lead and member of the Steering Committee that will oversee the design and implementation of the ABLE consortium on its award.
Dr. Judit Kumuthini is Co-principal Investigator and Senior Researcher at the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI). Judit received her BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science and MSc in Bioinformatics in the UK. She completed her PhD at University of Cranfield, UK, in Bioinformatics in genetic network (GN) extraction using a Bayesian belief framework to decipher causality. During her PhD, Judit established novel processes to learn genome-wide Genetic Network for E. coli, yeast and humans from microarray data. Judit later joined the drug discovery group at GSK (Glaxo Smith Kline, UK) as a drug-target bioinformatician.
After completing a post-doctoral research fellowship at University of Cape Town, she became the Bioinformatics Manager at the CPGR (Centre for Proteomic and Genomics Research) and later Human Capital Development (HCD) Manager for over 11 years. While she served in the above capacities, she led her team to provide expertise in various fields in bioinformatics through research including providing support and R&D through collaboration to life scientists in the “omics” field to address a wide range of biological questions from genomics to system biology.
She has developed and managed various training programs and initiatives including KTP (knowledge transfer programme) aimed at developing specific skill sets required for the next generation of in silico biologists and bioinformaticians in Africa. Judit is co-PI of H3ABioNet project (H3A bioinformatics network) under the umbrella of H3A funded by the National institutes of Health (NIH). She is an active and longstanding member in various global networks and initiatives including GA4GH, G2MC, GOBLET and EMBNET amongst others. She is the co-chair for the H3Africa’s Rare Diseases work group and also the member of Scientific advisory committee of the newly formed North African Precision Medicine Consortium (PerMediNA) and editor and reviewer in many scientific journals.
She has trained and supervised many postgraduate students in Europe and Africa in the past. Within ABLE she co-leads VECTOR and leads the Precision Medicine working group and is a member of the Steering Committee.
Prof. Osman Alimamy Sankoh, Commander of the Order of the Rokel, Sierra Leonean, is the Statistician General of Sierra Leone and Chief Executive Officer of Statistics Sierra Leone and former Vice Chancellor & Principal of Njala University, Sierra Leone; Vice-Chair of the United Nations Statistical Commission; Mercator Fellow, Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, University of Heidelberg Medical School, Heidelberg, Germany; Honorary Professor, Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi, Vietnam and Honorary Professor of Public Health, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Osman has many years of progressive experience in health and demographic surveillance systems and networking of international scientists and research institutions and has led grants of over 100 million dollars, including grants from Rockefeller Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, World Bank, Sida, CIDA, Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation. He was the Executive Director of the INDEPTH Network of Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems in Africa, Asia and Oceania from September 2007 until March 2018 and also served as Deputy Executive Director of the Network till 2007. He was Co-PI of NIH 5-year funded H3Africa Initiative Collaborative Centre: ‘Genomic study of body composition and cadiometabolic disease risk’ (U54 HG006938-01).
The long-term vision is to build capacity in Africa for research that leads to an understanding of and response to the interplay between genetic, epigenetic and environmental risk factors for obesity and associated cardiometabolic disease (CMD) in sub-Saharan Africa. He is a member of the Advisory Boards/Committees of several international academic journals including The Lancet Global Health, Global Health Action and Tropical Medicine and International Health. He has also acted as a consultant on population and health issues to the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, and the African Census Analysis Project at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. His more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications have appeared in a range of international journals, with Google scholar citation of 15,641 and h-index of 41.
He was the co-ordinating editor of INDEPTH Network’s first monograph entitled ‘Population and Health in Developing Countries – Population, Health and Survival at INDEPTH Sites’, published in 2002 by IDRC, Canada. He leads the methodology working group and also a member of the Steering Committee in the ABLE consortium .
Professor Ibrahim Abubakar is an Executive Dean at University College London, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and UK National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator. He is currently a member of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board and chairs the NIHR Global Professorships Panel. He has served as the Director UCL Institute for Global Health; Scientific Adviser to the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee – Science of COVID-19 Review, Scientific and Technical Adviser to the Nigerian Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 and chaired the Lancet Commission on Migration and Health and the Lancet Nigeria Commission.
Over the last 3 decades his career has spanned technical and leadership roles in clinical, academic and public service work. He was a senior investigator at the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit. Prior to his appointment at UCL, he was head of TB at Public Health England where he led the UK government’s successful strategy to control TB and was Professor in Health Protection at the Norwich Medical School, Norwich, UK. He qualified in medicine in 1992 and initially trained in general medicine.
He undertook postgraduate training at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine graduating in 1999 with distinction and at the University of Cambridge in 2000. He is a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh, the UK Faculty of Public Health and the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. He chairs expert and policy advisory groups for the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, NIHR, the World Health Organization, Wellcome Trust, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and other international bodies and has provided technical support to countries in Africa, Europe and North America.
He has an established multi-million pound research programme in infectious diseases and global health and has published over 350 research papers (H-Index 88), policy reports, book chapters and textbooks in infectious disease epidemiology and migrant health.
Professor Julie Makani (MD, PhD, FRCP, FTAAS) is Provost Visiting Professor at Imperial College London, UK from 1 April 2023. She is a Physician Scientist in the Department of Haematology and Blood Transfusion at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) www.muhas.ac.tz and Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) https://www.mnh.or.tz/ Tanzania established one of the world’s largest single-center study cohorts for sickle cell disease.
She serves as Principal Investigator of the Sickle Cell programme in MUHAS and Sickle Pan African Research Consortium (SPARCO) Clinical Coordinating Centre (CCC) within SickleInAfrica network http://www.sickleinafrica.org/. She is Site Principal Investigator for MUHAS for H3ABioNet https://www.h3abionet.org/; Co- Principal Investigator SickleGenAfrica http://sicklegenafrica.com/. Her work aims to use sickle cell disease as a model to establish scientific and healthcare solutions in Africa, that are locally relevant and globally significant. The approach integrates public health interventions with genomics including gene therapy to improve health and cure sickle cell disease.
Professor Makani is trained in Medicine (Tanzania), specialized in Internal Medicine (UK), and completed her PhD in clinical epidemiology of sickle cell disease (UK). She was a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow [Training 2003 – 2009; Intermediate 2012 – 2017], Tutu Leadership Fellow (2009) www.alinstitute.org and Honorary Visiting Research Fellow, University of Oxford (2003 – 2016). She received the 2011 Royal Society Africa Award http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd17odE1YLs on the application of genomic research to improve health and find a cure for sickle cell disease. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of UK and Fellow of the Tanzania Academy of Sciences.