A private Nigerian laboratory has joined other scientists and laboratories around the world in the race towards developing a vaccine for the treatment of Coronavirus.
The laboratory known as African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), located at Redeemer University (RUN) in Iwo, Osun State, is collaborating with Cambridge University in the United Kingdom on the project.
ACEGID, a strategic partner of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), is responsible for all COVID-19 testing in Kwara and the south-west states, except Lagos.
Coordinating the project at the centre is Christian Happi, a professor of molecular biology and genomics study who as the laboratory’s director runs the project that is currently at early vaccine development stage.
He leads a team of 21 African researchers and vaccine developers in the race toward the production of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Happi’s journey to molecular biology and genomics study started modestly in 1992 at the University of Yaounde, Cameroon, where he completed a bachelor’s degree and proceeded to Nigeria where he took masters and doctoral degrees at the University of Ibadan.
After a postdoctoral fellowship at the famed Harvard University School of Public Health in the United States, Happi worked as a research scientist for three years at the same institution from 2004 and became an adjunct professor between 2007-2011.
He is currently a visiting professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases (IID), at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology of the same university.
He confirmed the diagnosis of the first case of Ebola virus disease in Nigeria in 2014 and worked closely with Nigerian health authorities for the successful containment of the outbreak of the disease in Nigeria.
Happi recently used next generation sequencing technology to perform the first sequence of the new SARS-CoV-2 in Africa, within 48 hours of receiving a sample of the first case in Nigeria.
We hope for the best in this new journey.
