Evans Amukoye
Dr. Amukoye is a senior principal clinical scientist, a pediatrician with interests in pediatric pulmonology, and I am currently the Ag. Director, Scientific Programs, Partnerships & Grantsmanship/Deputy Director, Grantsmanship at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) [www.kemri.org]. Dr. Amukoye previously acted as the Deputy Director for Research and Development for 3 years until March 2018. He obtained his MB.ChB (1985) and M.Med (1992) from the University of Nairobi and has undertaken several professional training courses in pediatrics. Key among them include a senior clinical fellowship at the Institute of Child Health (London) in Critical Care as well as attachment training in paediatric bronchoscopy/respiratory from the University of Saporo and Kyorin University (Japan), among others. His research interest includes multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis studies, TB infections, pneumonia in children, influenza virus, and HIV/AIDS. He is currently interested in finding out why some populations (immediate post-treatment and HIV infected) have such a high risk of developing TB disease. He has authored and co-authored several publications and books and is a co-editor of two regional and institutional journals. He is a member of many professional bodies including the Association of Travel Medicine & Vaccination Services of Kenya (ATMVSK), the Pan Africa Thoracic Society, Targeting Asthma in Sub-Saharan Africa, the European Respiratory Society, ATS, the National Task Force for Preparedness of Avian Flu Pandemic, Kenya Paedriatics Association, and the Kenya Association for Prevention of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (KAPTLD, Executive Board) among others.
He has been a PI or Co-PI in over 25 funded studies focused mainly on Tuberculosis, Influenza and effects of pollution on health. He has directed multiple clinical trials focused on the development of shorter or improved drug regimens for the treatment of tuberculosis as well as clinical trials to develop novel diagnostic platforms that improve TB detection. He has also collaborated on studies of immunity in people co-infected with TB and HIV since 2011, which included immunological investigations performed on site at the CRDR-KEMRI.
Dr. Amukoye is also currently working with St Andrews Africa Research (StAAHR) in a collaborative study to establish Tuberculosis Molecular Bacterial Load Assay (TB-MBLA) at KEMRI and Kenya which is a capacity building study. Dr. Amukoye’s dream is to develop new crop of top scientists and to orientate the institute into being an excellent center for discovery science.