Prof. Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) at Stellenbosch University and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Deputy director of the Genomic Surveillance Unit (Wellcome Sanger Institute) since January 2024. He played a leading role in the response to COVID-19 in South Africa through his visionary application of genomics and bioinformatics. Prof. de Oliveira has worked for over 20 years with viral outbreaks, including HIV, Hepatitis B and C, Chikungunya, Dengue, SARS-CoV-2, Zika, and Yellow Fever Virus. Prof. de Oliveira has more than 300 publications, with many of them in high impact scientific journals. Prof. de Oliveira was listed in Nature as being one of the top ten people who helped to shape science in 2021. He was also included in the MIT Technology Review list as one of the leaders of the ten breakthrough technologies in 2022. Most recently, he was the recipient of the Lifetime Leadership Award from the Discovery Health, the Order of Merit (OM) medal from the Portuguese President, the Gold Medal Award from the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), the Batho Pele Award from the Government of South Africa for his contributions to society and was the co-recipient of the German Africa prize for his contributions towards identifying the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
For more information: CERI Website: https://ceri.org.za/