Tulio de Oliveira | |
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| Born | Brazil |
| Education |
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| Spouse | Dr. Astrid de Oliveira (maiden name Treffry-Goatley) |
| Children | Kiara, Tiago and Rafael |
| Parents |
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| Awards | Batho Pele Award (2022) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | |
| Doctoral students | Sikhulile Moyo |
Tulio de Oliveira is a Brazilian, Portuguese, and South African permanent resident professor of bioinformatics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and associate professor of global health at the University of Washington. He has studied outbreaks of chikungunya, dengue, hepatitis B and C, HIV, SARS-CoV-2, yellow fever and Zika. During the COVID-19 pandemic he led the team that confirmed the discovery of the Beta variant of the COVID-19 virus in 2020 and the Omicron variant in 2021.
He gained fellowships to the University of Oxford, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and the University of Edinburgh and in 2015 was appointed professor. In 2017, he founded the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) and in 2021 he founded the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI), to sequence and trace epidemics.
De Oliveira was born in Brazil. [1] He earned a bachelor of science degree from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. [2] He completed his MSc and PhD at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal. [2]
During his career he has studied outbreaks of chikungunya, dengue, hepatitis B and C, HIV, SARS-CoV-2, yellow fever and Zika. [2]
From 2004 to 2006 he was a Marie Curie research fellow at the University of Oxford. [2] In 2015 he was a Newton advanced fellow at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute at the University of Edinburgh and in the same year was appointed professor of bioinformatics at University of KwaZulu-Natal. [1] [2] There, in 2017, he founded KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), which has sequenced and traced dengue, Zika, HIV and tuberculosis, in addition to SARS-CoV-2. [1] [3] In 2018, the year prior to completing his fellowship at Edinburgh, he was appointed as an associate professor of Global Health at the University of Washington. [2] In July 2021, he became a professor of bioinformatics at Stellenbosch University's School for Data Science and Computational Thinking. [2]
During the COVID-19 pandemic he led the team that confirmed the discovery of the Beta variant of the COVID-19 virus in late 2020. [1] [4] He has hypothesised that large groups of previously-infected people with declining immunity directly drive the emergence of variants of concern. [5] If simultaneously there is a high level of transmission, then declining individual immunity may fail to prevent re-infection and if the virus is not cleared in enough people, new dangerous mutations may become more likely, as the virus survives and goes on to infect more people. [5] Subsequently, as principal investigator and leader of the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa, he led the team that confirmed and alerted authorities of the Omicron variant, first sequenced in Johannesburg's Lancet Laboratory, as a new variant in 2021. [4] [6] [7] After first alerting authorities to the Omicron variant in South Africa, de Oliveira contended that the origin is unknown; he has "insisted that just because it was first detected in South Africa doesn't mean that's where it originated". [8] He reported that it was possible that Omicron came from elsewhere as O. R. Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg, was the largest in Africa. [9]
De Oliveira was included in a list of ten scientists with important roles in scientific developments in 2021 compiled by the scientific journal Nature. [1] De Oliveira was included in a list of the leader of genomics surveillance as one of the ten breakthrough technologies in 2022 compiled by the scientific journal MIT_Technology_Review. [10] He received the Gold Medal Award from the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) in 2022. [11] In the same year, for his contributions to society, he received the Batho Pele Award from the Government of South Africa. [12] His name was included in the Time's 2024 100 influential people in health. [13]
| International | |
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| Academics | |
The University of KwaZulu-Natal is a university with five campuses in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. It was formed on 1 January 2004 after the merger between the University of Natal and the University of Durban-Westville.
Yuen Kwok-yung is a Hong Kong microbiologist, physician, and surgeon. He is a prolific researcher, with most of his nearly 800 papers related to research on novel microbes or emerging infectious diseases. He led a team identifying the SARS coronavirus that caused the SARS pandemic of 2003–04, and traced its genetic origins to wild bats. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he acted as expert adviser to the Hong Kong government.
GISAID, the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data, previously the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data, is a global science initiative established in 2008 to provide access to genomic data of influenza viruses. The database was expanded to include the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as other pathogens. The database has been described as "the world's largest repository of COVID-19 sequences". GISAID facilitates genomic epidemiology and real-time surveillance to monitor the emergence of new COVID-19 viral strains across the planet.
The Emerging Pathogens Institute (EPI) is an interdisciplinary research institution associated with the University of Florida. The institute focuses on fusing key disciplines to develop outreach, education, and research capabilities designed to preserve the region's health and economy, as well as to prevent or contain new and re-emerging diseases. Researchers within the institute work in more than 30 different countries around the world, with over 250 affiliated faculty members stemming from 11 University of Florida colleges, centers, and institutes. The 90,000-square-foot building includes laboratories and collaborative space for bioinformatics and mathematical modeling.
Salim S. Abdool Karim, MBChB, MMed, MS(Epi), FFPHM, FFPath (Virol), DipData, PhD, DSc(hc), FRS is a South African public health physician, epidemiologist and virologist who has played a leading role in the AIDS and COVID-19 pandemic. His scientific contributions have impacted the landscape of HIV prevention and treatment, saving thousands of lives.
Professor Ravindra "Ravi" Kumar Gupta is a professor of clinical microbiology at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease at the University of Cambridge. He is also a member of the faculty of the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, South Africa.
The transmission of COVID-19 is the passing of coronavirus disease 2019 from person to person. COVID-19 is mainly transmitted when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets/aerosols and small airborne particles containing the virus. Infected people exhale those particles as they breathe, talk, cough, sneeze, or sing. Transmission is more likely the closer people are. However, infection can occur over longer distances, particularly indoors.
The Beta variant, (B.1.351), was a variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. One of several SARS-CoV-2 variants initially believed to be of particular importance, it was first detected in the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan area of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa in October 2020, which was reported by the country's health department on 18 December 2020. Phylogeographic analysis suggests this variant emerged in the Nelson Mandela Bay area in July or August 2020.
Variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are viruses that, while similar to the original, have genetic changes that are of enough significance to lead virologists to label them separately. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Some have been stated, to be of particular importance due to their potential for increased transmissibility, increased virulence, or reduced effectiveness of vaccines against them. These variants contribute to the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nextstrain is a collaboration between researchers in Seattle, United States and Basel, Switzerland which provides a collection of open-source tools for visualising the genetics behind the spread of viral outbreaks.
The term variant of concern (VOC) for SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is a category used for variants of the virus where mutations in their spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD) substantially increase binding affinity in RBD-hACE2 complex, while also being linked to rapid spread in human populations.
Alex Sigal is a South Africa–based virologist at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) in Durban, South Africa, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, and University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. His work concentrates on evolution and persistence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. His laboratory was the first to isolate the live B.1.351 (Beta) variant of SARS-CoV-2 first detected in South Africa. Sigal’s laboratory was also the first to report results on the ability of the Omicron variant to escape antibody neutralization in individuals who had two doses of the Pfizer BNT162b2 vaccine as well as from previous infections, with results also suggesting that vaccination combined with a booster or previous infection can offer protection from symptomatic infection with Omicron.
Omicron (B.1.1.529) is a variant of SARS-CoV-2 first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) by the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa on 24 November 2021. It was first detected in Botswana and has spread to become the predominant variant in circulation around the world. Following the original B.1.1.529 variant, several subvariants of Omicron have emerged including: BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, BA.4, and BA.5. Since October 2022, two subvariants of BA.5 called BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have emerged.
This timeline of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is a dynamic list, and as such may never satisfy criteria of completeness. Some events may only be fully understood and/or discovered in retrospect.
Penelope Moore is a virologist and DST/NRF South African Research Chair of Virus-Host Dynamics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and Senior Scientist at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.
Sikhulile M. Moyo is a Zimbabwean virologist working as the laboratory director of the Botswana–Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership in Gaborone. He is a research associate in immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In November 2021, Moyo and his laboratory were the first to identify the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. In 2022, Moyo was listed in the Time 100 list.
Leondios G. Kostrikis is a molecular virologist from Cyprus and a professor of molecular virology at the University of Cyprus. He is a founding member of the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts and a member of Academia Europaea. In 2022, he attracted media attention with the news of having found a "Deltacron" Coronavirus variant, a recombinant between Delta and Omicron strains. The emergence of this phenomenon initially evoked scepticism, characterized by concerns primarily centered around contamination or coinfection as plausible etiological contributors. These hypotheses were predominantly disseminated through unsubstantiated assertions within the realms of social and mass media, lacking concurrent scientific evidence to validate their claims. Comparable observations on a global scale dispelled doubt, eventually leading to the recognition of Delta-Omicron variants by the scientific community and their subsequent monitoring by the World Health Organization.
This article is about the timeline of events during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa which was part of the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that was first recorded in South Africa on 1 March 2020. Since that date the pandemic has hit the country in four waves.
Sunit Kumar Singh is an Indian molecular virologist and professor of Molecular Immunology & Virology at the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University. Currently he is the director of the Dr B R Ambedkar Center for Biomedical Research (ACBR), New Delhi.
Francesco PetruccioneAAS,ASSAf, NITheCS is a physicist and academic leader currently living in South Africa and serving as a professor of Physics at Stellenbosch University and the director of the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS). With a wealth of experience in his field, he previously held the position of professor and Pro Vice-Chancellor of Big Data and Informatics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Petruccione is also a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa.
