Principal Investigator

Members

Kofi is a PhD student working on atypical Human African Trypanosomiasis (a-HAT). His research focuses on finding the occurrence of potentially zoonotic parasites and the effect of these parasites on human health. In 2019, he visited the Chemistry and Biology Lab at University of Bremen on an exchange program to study ‘Molecular Diagnostics in Tropical Medicine’ with focus on Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) of DNA. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Biology from University for Development Studies and an MPhil in Microbiology from KNUST where he studied ‘Soil transmitted helminthes and urinary tract infections in pre-school children.

Thomas is a doctoral student pursuing parasitology and immunology at KNUST. His research areas include molecular and parasite immunology and currently working on developing “An infectious bite marker for sensitive malaria detection and population level surveillance”. Thomas holds a BSc in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology and MPhil in Parasitology. Before joining the Vector-Borne Pathogens Research Group, Thomas participated in several projects and notably among them are “Circulating Endothelial Progenitor Cells and the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria in children” and placental malaria at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) under the supervision of Professor Ben Gyan.

Hakim is a PhD student at the Vector-Borne Pathogens Research Group. He is currently working with a collaborator in Ohio State University to develop a new paper-based immunoassay platform for malaria diagnosis that utilizes antigen/antibody interactions for biomarker capture from untreated biofluids. Prior to this, he has been studying malaria transmission at the community level in Ghana across all the transmission settings. In particular, he has evaluated the accuracy of the available diagnostic tools both in the peripheral health centres where there is no electricity to the sophisticated laboratories where gene amplifications are done. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Science and Master’s degree in Microbiology, both acquired from KNUST.

Austine holds a Masters in Parasitology degree obtained from KNUST. During this program, he investigated the transmission of trypanosomiasis in cattle and pigs and blood meal analysis of tsetse flies. He visited the Biology and Chemistry laboratory at the University of Bremen, Germany for optimization of molecular diagnostic tools for tropical diseases. He completed with BSc. Biological Sciences at KNUST and served his one-year mandatory national service as a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Biology. He is currently serving as a research assistant on Malaria project being run at the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research (KCCR).

Dawood obtained his BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences from the Department of Theoretical and Applied Biology at KNUST in 2016. After completion, he joined the Vector-Borne Pathogens Lab pursuing MPhil Parasitology programme in the same department and completed in 2020. Dawood worked on Malaria in Pregnancy for his postgraduate research project investigating the impact of malaria and anaemia on birth outcome. He is currently a Research Assistant on the MiLab collaborative research project evaluating the accuracy of a novel diagnostic device for malaria diagnosis.

Stephen holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and recently graduated with a MPhil  in Parasitology at KNUST. Stephen is currently a Research Assistant at the Vector-Borne Infectious Disease Lab and has vast experience with regards to malaria research. For his undergraduate, Stephen investigated impact of malaria parasitemia on selected hematological parameters among rural and urban communities around Kumasi. His most recent research  evaluated the performance of a novel artificial-intelligence based automated microscope for malaria diagnosis.

Ophelia joined the Vector-Borne Infectious Disease lab recently for her Masters in Microbiology program. She holds a Bachelors degree in Biological Sciences. Her current research seeks to investigate effect of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis on skin microbiota. Her previous research was aimed at identification of microorganisms which may be present at different stages of the production of Brukina Milk Drink in Ghana.