Third Meeting of the DS-I Africa Consortium
3 November - 9 November 2023

Prof Alash'Le Abimiku - Participant

Role of Data Streams In Informing Infection Dynamics in Africa- INFORM Africa (Contact-PI)

Professor Alash'le Abimiku has been pivotal to the establishment of a long-term collaboration between Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN) where she serves as the Executive Director of the International Research Centre of Excellence at the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria; and the Institute of Human Virology University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore where she is a Professor. As a trained Medical Microbiologist with specialization in Retrovirology, Prof. Abimiku first demonstrated the unique nature of the HIV strain prevalent in Nigeria in 1993 as subtype G during her postdoctoral training at NIH and provided the first reliable HIV research laboratory in central Nigeria. Prof. Abimiku's research focuses on the role of HIV subtypes in disease pathogenesis using mother to child model; and effects of co-infections such as TB on HIV pathogenesis. In addition to being a successful fully funded independent researcher with funding from NIH, CDC, and Canadian Institute for Health Research, Prof. Abimiku has trained a cadre of pre and post-doctoral Nigerians engaged in research through the UM-IHV NIH Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program Grant and CDC Health Human Resources Strengthening grant; and significantly contributed in the IHVN PEPFAR program. She is internationally recognized in her role as the chair of the board of directors of the African Society of Laboratory Medicine, a member of the WHO HIV Research for Prevention organizing committee. She is the Principal Investigator of two NIH funded H3Africa projects (IHVN H3Africa Biorepository (I-HAB) and the H3Africa BEAMING project that examines the role of breast milk microbiota in conditioning infant's microbiome and growth of HIV exposed uninfected infants) and the contact PI for the INFORM Africa research hub of the NIH funded Data Science Innovation for Africa (DS-I Africa).