Pr Souleymane MBOUP, Board Chair
Président fondateur, Institut de Recherche en Santé de Surveillance Epidémiologique et de Formation (IRESSEF)
Pr Souleymane Mboup is a renowned medical researcher, celebrated for his significant contribution to analysis and control of HIV/AIDS in West Africa, and particularly in Senegal. Pr Mboup received a Pharm D degree from the University of Dakar in Senegal in 1976, an Immunology MS degree from the Pasteur Institute in France in 1981, and a PhD in Bacteriology Virology in 1983 from Université de Tours, France. Through his skilled research and collection of blood samples from Senegalese prostitutes, Pr Mboup was instrumental in the initial identification of HIV-2 and also contributed to the finding that this virus is less virulent and less transmissible than HIV-1. He has authored or co-authored 250 publications and 20 books – including a monumental and comprehensive treatise called AIDS in Africa that was published in 1994. Pr Mboup has served (and in some cases still does) several organizations, holding positions as leader of the Senegalese AIDS Care Team at Harvard’s AIDS Institute Enhancing Care Initiative; the Senegalese coordinator for the Inter-University Convention (Harvard-Dakar-Tours-Limonges) for Research on Human Viruses and Related Diseases; President of the Senegalese Committee for AIDS Prevention; Consultant on AIDS to the World Health Organization, Representative for Africa to the International AIDS Society’s Governing Council, and a Member of the Partnership Board on the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trial Partnership (EDCTP). Pr Mboup is currently a professor of microbiology at the School of Medicine and Pharmacy at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Senegalese army. He also leads one of the most advanced diagnostic laboratories in Africa, the Laboratory of Bacteriology and Virology at Le Dantec Hospital in Dakar.