WWW Consortium team

Gordon Awandare is the Pro Vice-Chancellor responsible for Academic and Students Affairs at University of Ghana. 

He is a Professor of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology and the Founding Director of the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP).   

He obtained his BSc Biochemistry degree in 1998 and MPhil Biochemistry in 2002, both from the University of Ghana. He subsequently undertook his doctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a PhD degree in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology in 2007.

Prof Awandare did his postdoctoral fellowship at the Malaria Vaccine Division of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland from 2007 to 2010.   

He was Head of Department of Biochemistry from 2013 to 2017, and in 2014, he led the establishment of WACCBIP after winning one of the World Bank’s African Centres of Excellence grants. 

Subsequently Prof Awandare has led WACCBIP to mobilize over $40m to University of Ghana for equipment, infrastructure, and fellowships to over 300 scientists from 15 African countries for Masters, doctoral and postdoctoral training. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Prof Awandare’s team have played a leading role in Ghana’s response by providing research data on seroprevalence and genomic diversity of circulating SARS-CoV-2 viruses.

He has supervised 14 postdoctoral fellows, 20 PhD students and 23 Master’s students and has more than 130 peer-reviewed journal publications in a wide range of journals, including some of the leading infectious diseases and immunology journals.    

Prof Awandare was a recipient of the Royal Society Pfizer award for 2015 for achievements in molecular and cellular studies of malaria, and science capacity building in Africa. 

At the University of Ghana, he received the Distinguished Award for Meritorious Service in 2014, Citation of Honor in recognition of contributions to science development in the College of Basic and Applied Sciences in particular, and University of Ghana in general in 2020 and Meritorious Award in Recognition of Outstanding Service, College of Basic and Applied Sciences in 2021.  

He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Biology of the UK.  In 2019, he was appointed the first Global Editor for Africa for Experimental Biology and Medicine, the journal of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. 

He also serves on numerous prestigious international boards and committees, including, Chairman, West African Network of Infectious Disease ACEs (WANIDA), a World Bank/French Government funded collaborative network for training and research; Member, Expert Advisory Board, Wellcome Trust Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Africa (CIDRI), University of Cape Town, South Africa; Deputy Director and Member of Steering Committee, Crick African Network, Francis Crick Institute, UK, Member; Steering Committee, National Institute of Health Research Global Research Unit on Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa (TIBA), University of Edinburgh, UK; Member, Technical Consultant, Science Engagement to support Evidence Informed Policy Responses to COVID-19 in Africa, Africa Academy of Sciences, Nairobi, Kenya; Member, Lancet COVID-19 Commission, Africa task Force; Member, Editorial Board, Parasitology; Member, MalariaGEN Governance Committee, Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK; Member of Council, Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine; Member, Advisory Board, AAS Open Research, African Academy of Sciences; Member, Wellcome Sanger Institute Advanced Courses and Scientific Conferences Steering Group, UK.   

Dr. Yaw Bediako is Chief Executive Officer of Yemaachi Biotech Ltd in Accra, Ghana.

He is a Ghanaian immunologist with a broad interest in investigating immune function among African populations in order to better address immunopathology associated with infectious and non-infectious diseases among these populations.

Following his completion of a PhD at Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, his post-doctoral research projects conducted at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme in Kenya and subsequently at the Francis Crick Institute in London, have focused on understanding the immunological mechanisms by which naturally acquired immunity to Malaria is acquired and maintained.

He is currently expanding upon this work at the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), here at the University of Ghana where he is a Research Fellow.   

He is passionate about developing sustainable research infrastructure and human capacity on the continent, especially leveraging African expertise in the diaspora to strengthen local academic institutions.

In line with this, he holds the position as the Head of Advancement at WACCBIP and also led the African Science initiative - an online networking platform for young African Scientists. He is also a Crick African Network fellow and a member of the eLife Early Career Advisory Group.  

In June 2020 he founded Yemaachi Biotech, an immunogenomics start-up based in Accra. Yemaachi’s vision is to lower the financial burden of disease on the African continent by leveraging state-of-the-art molecular and cellular biology to develop novel diagnostic tools and therapeutic agents that work uniformly well irrespective of genetic background.

In November 2021, Yaw was selected as a Calestous Juma Science Leadership Fellow by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Yaw is also a fellow of the Ghana Young Academy and an Affiliate member of the African Academy of Sciences.  

He has received numerous awards including the 2022 Ghana Forty under 40 in Science, Technology and Innovation.  

Dr Peter Kojo Quashie is Deputy Director in Charge of Research and heads the Pandemic Virology Group at WACCBIP.

He obtained his PhD from McGill University and his post-doctoral training from the  University of Toronto, both in Canada. As part of his PhD work, he published the seminal papers on the unique drug resistance profile of HIV wonder-drug dolutegravir; his publications are referenced in some of the clinical tools used in the evaluation of dolutegravir’s resistance.

As a recipient of a 2015 Banting Postdoctoral fellowship, he pursued postdoctoral training in Structural Virology at the University of Toronto under the mentorship of Prof Jeffrey Lee in the Department of Laboratory medicine and Pathobiology.

In 2019, funded by an inaugural Crick African Network Fellowship, Dr Quashie moved to the University of Ghana to start his independent group. At the Crick, he was mentored by Prof Jonathan Stoye on the Molecular Epidemiology of HIV in West Africa.

In late 2019, he was appointed as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Ghana.  At WACCBIP, he heads the Pandemic Virology group, focusing of HIV, SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses of epidemic importance.

In January 2022, Dr Peter Quashie was appointed Deputy Director in-charge-of Research at WACCBIP. In this role he has oversight of the research direction, activities and teams at WACCBIP. He also directly coordinates much of WACCBIP’s COVID-19 grants and research portfolio.

He is also the Principal Investigator of the Ghana site of the Global Immunology and Immune Sequencing for Epidemic Response (GIISER) program, funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). He was part of a delegation of international scientists, who visited Cuba in mid-2022 to investigate the development of and use of COVID-1 vaccines in Cuba’s national response- that report was recently unveiled at the 2022 annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH).

Most recently, WACCBIP’s COVID-19 team have published in Nature Communications, Science, and BMC medicine, and are the leading research voice for SARS-CoV-2 research in the West African Region.

WACCBIP recently published the first immunology evidence explaining the  low-severity experience of COVID-19 in Ghana as well as several manuscripts on the genetic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Ghana.

This Wellcome-funded project builds on the work that has been driven at WACCBIP by Dr Quashie and his colleagues.   

1. Genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Ghana from 2020-2021 

2. The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance 

3. Reconsidering the incubation period of Marburg virus disease 

4. Probing SARS-CoV-2-positive plasma to identify potential factors correlating with mild COVID-19 in Ghana, West Africa 

5. Detection of SARS-CoV-2 intra-host recombination during superinfection with Alpha and Epsilon variants in New York City 

Christine Carrington is Professor of Molecular Genetics and Virology and Head of the Department of Preclinical Sciences of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at The University of the West Indies (St. Augustine Campus) in Trinidad and Tobago.

She holds a BSc in Biotechnology and PhD in Molecular Virology, both from the University of London.

Her research focuses on understanding evolutionary and ecological factors involved in the emergence, spread and maintenance of viruses, especially vector-borne RNA viruses. Her work to date includes studies on dengue viruses, Zika virus, Chikungunya virus, yellow fever virus, rabies virus and coronaviruses.  

Christine is the Coordinator of the WHO/PAHO reference sequencing laboratory at the UWI and of the Global Virus Netwo k Affiliated Centre of Excellence at the Faculty of Medical Sciences.

She is a founding member of the Faculty of Medical Sciences’ Tropical Medicine Cluster: Infectious Diseases, Trinidad and Tobago’s representative on the Board of Governors of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, a member of the UWI COVID-19 Task Force and the Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation to the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Health.

She led COVID-19 IMPACT project that established local capacity for SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequencing and carried out genomic surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern for 17 Caribbean countries.

She is the Anthony N. Sabga Awards - Caribbean Excellence, 2022 Laureate in Science & Technology and recipient of a Trinidad and Tobago National Award (Chaconia Medal Gold) for her service and contributions as a virologist. 

Joshua Anzinger is the Head of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Diagnostic Virology Laboratory, the only virology laboratory in Jamaica. 

He has responded to several epidemics, including Zika, dengue and now COVID-19. He has participated in a number of international studies examining emerging viral infections as well as an ongoing large prospective study (ZIKAction) examining vertical transmission of dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses.

He has also pioneered studies of immunometabolic dysfunction during HIV infection that may contribute to the increased risk of developing diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis in people living with HIV.

In addition to his academic role with the UWI and leading the UWI Diagnostic Virology Laboratory, I work closely with PAHO as a member of the Arbovirus Diagnosis Laboratory Network of the Americas (RELDA), having been invited to participate in expert meetings for the laboratory diagnosis of arboviruses, including at PAHO headquarters.

He is a member of the PAHO Caribbean Sub-Regional Certification Committee (SCC) for the Polio Endgame in the Region of the Americas, having represented the SCC at the Regional Certification Committee for all the Americas.

Finally, he is the Principal Investigator of the Jamaica site of the Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition that provides virus surveillance and discovery for Jamaica, and also serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Clinical Virology Plus. 

COVID-19 publications

• Osterholm MT et al., Insights from Cuba's COVID-19 Vaccine Enterprise: Report from a High Level Fact-Finding Delegation to Cuba.  MEDICC Rev. 2022;24(3-4):72-108. PMID:36417340 

• Anzinger JJ et al., Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies after the Omicron surge, Kingston, Jamaica, 2022. J Clin Virol Plus. 2022;2(4):100124. PMID:36415687 

• Leys YE et al., SARS-CoV-2 Receptor-Binding Domain IgG Response to AstraZeneca AZD1222 COVID-19 Vaccination, Jamaica. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2022;106(5):1511-1514. PMID:35320778 

• Butterfield TR et al., Assessment of commercial SARS-CoV-2 antibody assays, Jamaica. Int J Infect Dis. 2021;105:333-336. PMID:33610776 

Other recent publications

• Lue AM et al., Severity and outcomes of dengue in hospitalized Jamaican children in 2018-2019 during an epidemic surge in the Americas. Front Med (Lausanne). 2022;9:889998. PMID:35801209 

• Butterfield TR et al., Elevated CD4+ T-cell glucose metabolism in HIV+ women with diabetes mellitus. AIDS. 2022;36(10):1327-1336. PMID:35727147  

• Anzinger JJ et al., Antenatal seroprevalence of Zika and chikungunya viruses, Kingston Metropolitan Area, Jamaica, 2017-2019. Emerg Infect Dis. 2022;28(2):473-475. PMID:35076369 

• Averhoff F et al., The Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition: a unique multisector approach adds to global pandemic preparedness efforts. Int J Infect Dis. 2022;117:356-360. PMID:35134559 

• Cameron-McDermott SM et al., Antimicrobial susceptibility of Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates and syndromes treatment of men with urethral discharge in Kingston, Jamaica, 2018-2019. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2021;77(1):218-222. PMID:34557895 

David LV Bauer leads the RNA Virus Replication Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute.

David obtained a BS in Chemistry from the City College of New York and received a Rhodes Scholarship in 2009. At Oxford, he carried out his doctoral work at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in the lab of Kalim Mir, focused on methods of sequencing single chromosomes using then-nascent Solexa/Illumina sequencing.

He subsequently received a US National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship to carry out biophysics research with Achilles Kapanidis at Oxford. His research focused on RNA polymerases and the use of single-molecule methods to understand transcription initiation in bacteria.

David then joined Ervin Fodor’s group at the Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford to study influenza virus transcription, combining his interests in genomics and RNA. His work has since focused on how virus RNA structure affects replication, transcription, and immune activation. He established his lab at the Francis Crick Institute in 2020.

Emma Wall is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the Crick and consultant in Infectious Diseases at UCLH.

She graduated from the University of Bristol and undertook higher specialist training in infection and internal medicine in North West London, Uganda and Malawi.

She did her PhD at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme in Malawi, studying clinical management and epidemiology of bacterial meningitis in Malawian adults. Her laboratory work uses a reverse-translational approach to understand invasive brain infections in HIV infected adults in low and middle income settings.

She is currently leading roll-out of the Crick Legacy study across the Crick and NHS partner sites in collaboration with the UCLH BRC.

Adam Kucharski is a Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology co-director of the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

His research focuses on understanding how social behaviour and immunity shape the dynamics of infectious disease outbreaks, and how knowledge of such processes can improve preparedness and response.

He has worked on outbreaks including Ebola, dengue, Zika, influenza and COVID-19, contributing real-time analysis to multiple governments and health agencies.

He is a Wellcome Trust/Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow and from 2013–17 he held a Medical Research Council Career Development Award in Biostatistics. 

Selected publications

• Kucharski AJ, Russell TW, Diamond C et al (2020) Early dynamics of transmission and control of COVID-19: a mathematical modelling study. Lancet Infect Dis. 

• Finch E, ..., Kucharski AJ (2022) SARS-CoV-2 infection and reinfection in a seroepidemiological workplace cohort in the United States. PLOS Biol.