TDR Global profiles

André Siqueira is Head of the Global Dengue Programme of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) for Latin America and a scientist at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocru ...

A pioneering entomologist and malaria researcher in Ethiopia, Professor Delenasaw Yewhalaw received a pivotal research grant from TDR early in his career, setting the stage for his ...

Having received research grants and a PhD scholarship from TDR early in his career, Professor Seydou Doumbia is now a principal investigator leading a TDR-supported postgraduate tr ...

As a woman born in the 1960s in Algeria, Professor Yasmine Belkaid had the rare privilege of belonging to a family that would become her biggest cheerleader as she progressed in he ...

As one of only three veterinary doctors in his country, Amara Leno has little time for rest. Dr Leno is the Chief Surveillance Officer and Data Manager with the Ministry of Agricul ...

Dr Blas, who is an epidemiologist and researcher at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, observed how Peru's Amazon rainforest is a region with high maternal and infant morbidities ...

Professor José Frantz is a senior research management professional who was recently accredited by the IPRC and is listed as one of its members. Currently she is the Deputy Vice-Cha ...

“Umntu Ngumntu Ngabantu” (“a person is a person through other people”) is a South African saying that strongly resonates with Phumla Sinxadi, a recipient of TDR’s Clinical Research ...

A key expert invited to speak at WHO’s recent Health Data Governance Summit was Cherif Mahamoud Sama, a recipient of TDR’s Clinical Research and Development Fellowship (CRDF). C ...

Dr Paul Sondo, a recipient of TDR’s Clinical Research and Development Fellowship, believes that malnutrition could have an important negative impact on the effectiveness of malaria ...

Dziedzom’s early ambitions had been to become a doctor. “But, fortunately, I didn’t get into medical school,” he says. Feeling a failure at the time, but determined to do something ...

When Dr Chandani Kharel was working as a clinician in Nepal, she witnessed many patients dying from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and diarrhea as well as from malnutriti ...

When Dr Rose Kosgei was choosing a specialty in medicine, she was drawn to internal medicine as well as undertaking surgery in theatre and found that obstetrics and gynaecology ful ...

“My career took a big jump following my clinical research and development fellowship,” says Mohammad Sharif Hossain, currently a co-investigator on three ongoing COVID-19 studies a ...

As a recipient of a TDR Clinical Research and Development Fellowship (CRDF), Wilfried Mutombo Kalonji helped develop fexinidazole, the first all-oral drug for sleeping sickness and ...

Passionate about the difference that diagnostics can make to countries such as his, Ethiopian scientist Belay Tessema has been awarded a prestigious Georg Forster Research award fr ...

Pascale Allotey’s early work in anthropology and gender provided critical evidence that contributed to women receiving protective bednets. Today she’s teaching policy-makers and re ...

As a university lecturer and Internal Medicine specialist, Dr Vicco's interest in research was stimulated by his desire to improve the quality of life of the community in which he ...

As a recipient of the TDR Clinical Research and Development Fellowship, Dr Owusu managed the implementation of a clinical trial of a highly sensitive malaria rapid diagnostic test ...

This profile shows how postgraduate training at the American University of Beirut allowed Dr Manochehr to transition from Afghanistan’s national TB control programme to the General ...

Paul Sondo, a molecular parasitologist from the Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro in Burkina Faso, spent 12 months with WWARN as a recipient of the Clinical Research and Development ...

After her first experiences managing clinical trials in Kenya, Dr Clara Agutu came away with a strong conviction. Knowing how to do a clinical trial was not enough. She wanted to l ...

Dr Razia Fatima’s passion to serve poor communities motivated her to pursue a medical degree and dedicate her career to tuberculosis (TB) control in Pakistan. Today she is a nation ...

Chair of TDR’s Joint Coordinating Board Dr Modest Mulenga grew up modestly. His father was a miner in Chingola, Zambia, and no one from his family had yet gone to university. But h ...

Dr Phumla Sinxadi has an ambitious - yet achievable - goal. She wants to be the first research scientist to run clinical trials from A to Z – meaning from Phase I through Phase IV ...

How tuberculosis and smoking rates in Armenia came to be analysed by a 17-year-old American student is a story of heritage, technology, and community service. TDR’s operational res ...

Margaret Gyapong’s lifelong passion for the sociocultural aspects of health arose from a single experience: observing that many people defecated on Accra’s beaches and wondering wh ...

Brenda Okech entered the world in what chess players would call a compromised position. Born in Kampala, Uganda in the spring of 1972, she started life in a city on edge. The econo ...

Atupele Kapito-Tembo’s work with communities in Malawi has been focused on malaria, HIV, maternal and child health, health systems strengthening and schistosomiasis. She’s also dev ...

When she became a doctor in 1999, Ugandan scientist Pauline Byakika couldn’t wait to see her first patient. Her schooling finally finished, she was eager to put her skills to work ...

Rose Leke first made her mark in the 1990s by investigating the immunology of parasitic infections, particularly malaria, and went on to become an international leader and mentor t ...

Lenore Manderson’s work in medical anthropology has helped to find answers to problems of health and disease inequalities, and lack of access to care.

Hannah Akuffo, TDR’s outgoing Joint Coordinating Board chair, credits a childhood bout with pneumonia to initiating her interest in science that resulted in a career in infectious ...

Jackie Badaki’s work in examining stigma and acceptance of new drugs has helped Nigeria manage lymphatic filariasis. Now she’s mentoring younger women to develop their own careers ...

More than anything about her childhood in the Philippines, Mary Ann Lansang loved learning. From primary school in her hometown of Baguio, a small city in the mountains of Luzon, t ...

Aster Tsegaye of Ethiopia was able to leverage the small TDR grant into something bigger that both expands support for women and also improves laboratory capacity.

Rosanna Peeling has spearheaded ground-breaking global efforts in diagnostics of infectious diseases including malaria, sexually transmitted infections, visceral leishmaniasis and ...

In her first year of medical school Dr Lyda Osorio was already clear on her path. She would devote her career to one mission: reducing the toll of neglected tropical diseases like ...

Dr Leonard Ortega, the newly appointed team leader of technical support and capacity building at the WHO’s Global Malaria Programme, comes from deep experience in the Philippines, ...

Rajander Sharma has devoted a lifetime to vector control in India, applying advanced entomological techniques discovered as a TDR grantee and contributing to the reduction of malar ...

Senior scientist Sitan Traoré is an expert entomologist – and a resource for younger colleagues. She has led an inter-institutional network of 16 health research institutions in Ma ...

Elizabeth Akinyi Ochola of Kenya is one of nine TDR grantees exploring ways of increasing the number of women in science in Africa. She is building on the Government of Kenya’s com ...

For as long as he can remember, American Bill Brieger has been interested in Africa. He managed to live and work there for more than two decades conducting pivotal research into ho ...

One of the new TDR IMPACT grantees, Nepal’s Dr Shiva Raj Adhikari, is working to expand his country’s understanding of the importance of health economics to improve health system e ...

Nahla Gadalla grew up knowing she would become a scientist, but little did she know that she would go on to one of the most important scientific puzzles in her country -- why Plasm ...

What does a doctor from Panama do when he is selected by his country to represent them on the TDR Joint Coordinating Board? When he sees that many of his colleagues from other low- ...

Cameroonian scientist Christian Happi, an expert in molecular biology and genomics, is providing key support to the current Ebola outbreak and helping build Africa’s intellectual i ...

Dr Welile Sikhondze joined FIND in June of 2013. She has transitioned from patient care to public health, putting aside long harbored dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon and deciding ...

Dr Magoma Mwancha-Kwasa was destined for a career in medicine. “My mother would always tell us that we had to be doctors,” she recalls of her childhood in Kenya, and nearly everyon ...

Dr Abdoulaye Diabaté received the Royal Society Pfizer Award 4 November for his work on the biology of male Anopheles mosquitoes and methods to interrupt mosquito mating. Dr Diabat ...

For some kids, it’s outer space, for others dinosaurs. But for a Sudanese boy by the name of Gehad el-Ghazali, it was the human body — how it works and why, the cells and circuits, ...

Bangladeshi scientist Dinesh Mondal rose from modest roots to become one of the country’s leading experts on the control of visceral leishmaniasis. He got his start with TDR grants ...

After long days in the lab, Yongyuth Yuthavong would get out and talk to anyone who would listen. And his message was simple: developing a science policy was not only necessary for ...

As a young doctor in Cameroon, Thomas Nchinda learned firsthand the limits of medicine in a resource-strapped setting. It was the early 1960s, and the newly independent country was ...

It was a TDR grant that launched Professor Rodrigo Corrêa-Oliveira on an impressive life-long career in immunology. And not just him; at least three-quarters of Brazil's immunologi ...

Fernán Agüero was immensely excited when he entered the field of bioinformatics. With a background in molecular biology and parasitology, he helped local groups to sequence small f ...

Few scientists, men or women, have overcome the odds Dr Marian Warsame faced as a young girl growing up in Somalia. The eldest of 10 children, Marian learned from an early age that ...

When Mario Grijalva left his native Ecuador for graduate studies in the United States, he had never heard of Chagas disease. Neither had most of the rural populations who lived wit ...

Political unrest in the 1970's Ethiopia changed the fate of Abraham Aseffa, a budding engineering undergraduate. The student movement that helped topple the old imperial order also ...

Long before he was the Minister of Health of the Democratic Republic of East Timor, Dr Nélson Martins served as a physician to his fellow countrymen as they fought for independence ...

Dr Uche Amazigo, the former Director of the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC) received the 2012 Prince Mahidol Award in Public Health and an honorary Doctor of Sc ...