Publications
Scholia has a profile for Francine Ntoumi (Q27445659).
Ntoumi has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) and Nature Genetics.
Francine Ntoumi | |
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| Born | 1961 Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo |
| Nationality | Congolese |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Parasitology |
| Institutions | Congolese Foundation for Medical Research Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation GISAID Regional Hub (Central Africa) Multilateral Initiative Against Malaria |
Francine NtoumiPh.D., HDR, PvDz, FRCPedin (born 1961) is a Congolese parasitologist specializing in malaria. She was the first African person in charge of the secretariat of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (2006-2010). [1] In recent years, she has become involved in research on other infectious diseases, [2] [3] [4] including COVID-19. [5]
Francine Ntoumi was born in 1961 in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo. Her father was an electrical engineer (one of the first in the Congo) and her mother was a neonatal nurse. She is the eldest of five siblings and the only girl.
Ntoumi received her primary education in Brazzaville. She moved to France for her BEPC degree, which she earned in 1975, and her baccalauréat, which she earned in 1978 from the Lycée Marie Curie de Sceaux. She earned her bachelor's degree in biology in 1989, then her doctorate in 1992 from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie. [2]
After earning her Ph.D., Ntoumi began her molecular immunology and epidemiology research on malaria at the Pasteur Institute of Paris. [2] She took a position in Franceville, Gabon, as a researcher at the International Center for Medical Research in 1995, and remained there until 2000. That year, she became the Head of Laboratory at the Medical Research Unit of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon, and the Institute of Tropical Medicine, University of Tübingen. She remained in these positions until 2005. Between 2006 and 2007, Ntoumi was the Scientific Director of the European Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), located in The Hague, Netherlands. She then led the Secretariat of the Multilateral Initiative Against Malaria in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, until 2010, as its first African leader. [2] [6] [7] [8]
Ntoumi has worked to reinforce the African continent's public health research capacity, through efforts coordinating the Central Africa Network on Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and Malaria (CANTAM). She is a member of many scientific committees, including the Global Health Scientific Advisory Committee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. [6] She leads the GISAID Regional Hub in Central Africa, facilitating international collaboration on SARS-CoV-2 sequencing and other disease research. [9]
Ntoumi is the President of the Congolese Foundation for Medical Research (FCRM), which she founded in 2008, which helped to establish the University Marien Ngouabi's first laboratory for molecular biology. Ntoumi is a senior lecturer at University Marien Ngouabi and has also been an associate professor at the University of Tübingen since 2010. Since 2014, she has been a professor and researcher at the Marien Ngouabi University. [2]
Ntoumi is involved in a programme “to make science a female ambition” in Africa, which aims to promote gender balance in science. [10]
Ntoumi has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) and Nature Genetics.
Ntoumi was the first Sub-Saharan African woman to receive the Georg Foster prize, for her work creating networks to combat infectious diseases across Africa. She has also been lauded for her leadership and education of scientists across Sub-Saharan Africa. [6] [7] [20] Ntoumi has also been awarded a fellowship of the African Academy of Science.
Other awards include:
Marien Ngouabi was the fourth President of the Republic of the Congo from January 1, 1969, to March 18, 1977.
Denis Sassou Nguesso is a Congolese politician and former military officer who became president of the Republic of the Congo in 1997. He served a previous term as president from 1979 to 1992. During his first period as president, he headed the Congolese Party of Labour (PCT) for 12 years. He introduced multiparty politics in 1990, but was stripped of executive powers by the 1991 National Conference, remaining in office as a ceremonial head of state. He stood as a candidate in the 1992 presidential election but placed third.
Since October 2018, the Center for Global Infectious Disease Research has been part of the Seattle Children's Research Institute. At the time of the merger, CID Research had 166 scientists. Its mission was to eliminate the world's most devastating infectious diseases through leadership in scientific discovery. The organization's research labs were in the South Lake Union area of Seattle, WA. The institute's research focused on four areas of infectious disease: HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and Emerging & Neglected Diseases (END) like African sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and toxoplasmosis. CID Research was engaged in early stages of the scientific pipeline including bench science and malaria clinical trials and has expertise in immunology, vaccinology, and drug discovery.
Awa Marie Coll-Seck is as Senegalese infectious diseases specialist and politician who served as Minister of Health of Senegal from 2001 to 2003 and again from 2012 to 2017. She also served as former Executive Director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership and is on the board of directors of several notable global health organizations. She is an agenda contributor of the World Economic Forum.
The Grand Challenges in Global Health (GCGH) is a research initiative launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in search of solutions to health problems in the developing world. Fifteen challenges are categorized in groups among seven stated goals plus an eighth group for family health. The disciplines involved include immunology, microbiology, genetics, molecular biology and cellular biology, entomology, agricultural sciences, clinical sciences, epidemiology, population and behavioral sciences, ecology, and evolutionary biology.
The African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET) is a pan-African international NGO headquartered in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It originally started its activities as African Malaria Vaccine Testing Network (AMVTN) in 1995 with the primary goal of preparing Africa in planning and conducting malaria vaccine trials. In order to widen the scope in malaria interventions, AMVTN was succeeded by AMANET on 14 March 2002. Although the primary goal of AMANET has remained malaria vaccine development, the organization in its expanded role includes other intervention measures such as antimalaria drugs and vector control.
Marien Ngouabi University is the only state-funded university in the Republic of the Congo. It is located in the capital of Brazzaville.
Agnes Binagwaho is a Rwandan Politian, pediatrician and co-founder and the former vice chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity (2017-2022). In 1996, she returned to Rwanda where she provided clinical care in the public sector as well as held many positions including the position of Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Health of Rwanda from October 2008 until May 2011 and Minister of Health from May 2011 until July 2016. She has been a professor of global health delivery practice since 2016 and a professor of pediatrics since 2017 at the University of Global Health Equity. She resides in Kigali.
Melanie Lisa Jane Stiassny is the Axelrod Research Curator of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History. Her research interests focus on freshwater biodiversity documentation and systematic ichthyology in the Old World tropics, including tropical Africa and Madagascar. She has published broadly on the biogeography conservation and systematics of teleosts.
Firdausi Qadri is a Bangladeshi scientist with specialization in immunology and infectious disease research. She has worked over 25 years on the development of vaccines for cholera and has expertise on other infectious disease like ETEC, Typhoid, Helicobacter pylori, rotavirus, etc. Currently, she is working as a director for Centre for Vaccine Sciences of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease and Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B). She also serves as chairperson of the Institute for developing Science and Health initiatives. Her scientific achievements lie in enteric infections and vaccines including Vibrio cholerae and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli—major causes of severe diarrhea. She has also focused on studying the immune response in Helicobacter pylori infected people in Bangladesh and the responses in patients with typhoid fever as well as vaccinees. The Government of Bangladesh awarded her the Independence Award in 2023.
Quarraisha Abdool Karim is an infectious diseases epidemiologist and co-founder and Associate Scientific Director of CAPRISA. She is a Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, Columbia University, New York and Pro-Vice Chancellor for African Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Barry R. Bloom is Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Department of Global Health and Population in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, where he served as dean of the faculty from 1998 through December 31, 2008.
The Malaria Eradication Scientific Alliance (MESA) is an organization founded on the research carried out by the Malaria Eradication Research Agenda (malERA). "malERA" was a project carried out by the scientific community to identify the steps and future research that must be done in order to eradicate malaria. It was created after the Malaria Forum in 2007, hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, reestablished malaria eradication as a long-term goal. "malERA" first launched in 2008, and resulted in a research and development agenda which was published in a PLoS Medicine magazine in 2011. MESA was formed in 2012 to continue the goals of malERA through research and development of methods to fight malaria.
Professor Helen Rees OBE GCOB D.Sc. Medicine LLD is a medical doctor, and the founder and executive director of Wits RHI, the largest research Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is a Personal Professor in the University of Witwatersrand's Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, co-director and co-founder of the Wits African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE), Honorary Professor in the Department of Clinical Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an Honorary Fellow at Cambridge University's Murray Edwards College, UK.
Ogobara Doumbo was a Malian medical researcher at the University of Mali. He was recognised as a global leader in malaria research. He was the recipient of the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mali, Legion d'honneur and research award on Malaria in Africa.
Thomas M. Kariuki is a Kenya biologist who is Chief Executive Officer of the Science for Africa Foundation. Kariuki previously served as the Director of Programmes for the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA). He was the Director of the Institute of Primate Research/National Museums of Kenya, for seven years. Kariuki’s research interests have spanned the immunology of neglected infectious diseases and he has been involved in global efforts to develop vaccines, drugs and diagnostics for poverty-related diseases. He has published on vaccines and diagnostics development for schistosomiasis (Bilharzia), malaria and co-infections and on policy issues related to biomedical research and funding. He is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), Senior Fellowship of the European Foundations Initiative for Neglected Tropical Diseases, Presidential honour of the Order of Grand Warrior of Kenya (OGW) for scientific leadership and public service, Honorary Professor of Research of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, LSTM.
Marie-Paule Kieny is a French virologist, vaccinologist, public health expert and science writer. She is currently director of research at INSERM and chief of the board at DNDi.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute is a non-profit biotechnology organization founded with the aim of bringing technologies and strategies to bear on the main health problems of the poor in low-income countries. The Gates MRI was organized as a subsidiary of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who funded it with a $273 million 4-year grant.
Marta Tufet Bayona is a British and Spanish biologist and public health resource coordinator with a specialty in malaria. She is executive director of the UK Collaborative on Development Research.
Evelyn Nungari Gitau is a Kenyan cellular immunologist at the African Academy of Sciences, and was named a Next Einstein Fellow.
Prof. Dr. Francine Ntoumi looks back on her surveillance work in Africa during the pandemic. In this profile she shares her views on global health equity, lessons learned, the impact of technology, and the importance of international collaboration that flows through GISAID's Regional Hub in Central Africa. A champion for scientific leadership in Africa and an extraordinary partner, her profile marks the first in a series of features where GISAID is spotlighting the contributions of our diverse community.
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