PANTHER is a clinical research ready-to-use platform governed by a majority of African leaders and aligns its priorities around those of the public health governing bodies.
Board of directors
The Board of Directors is the main administrative and management organ of PANTHER. It has the mission to implement the strategies decided by all PANTHER members at the organization’s general meeting. The Board is composed of the following members:
VICE-PRESIDENT
Yazdan Yazdanpanah
Head of Infectious Disease department at Bichat Claude Bernard Hospital, Paris.
Yazdan Yazdanpanah is currently the head of Infectious Disease department at Bichat Claude Bernard Hospital, and Professor of Medicine at Paris Diderot University, France. Yazdan Yazdanpanah became an MD from the Lille School of Medicine, France in 1996. He qualified from the same institution first as a hepato- gastro-enterologist in 1996 and next an infectious disease specialist in 2002. He obtained a Master of Science degree in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, US in 2000, and a Ph.D degree in public health from the Bordeaux School of Public Health in 2002. In 2006, he became Professor of Infectious Disease. His research interests include the clinical epidemiology of HIV, viral hepatitis and emerging infectious diseases, and the pharmaco-economics of antimicrobial agents.
He was one of the initiators and coordinators of Inserm “REACTing », a network under the umbrella of Aviesan (REsearch and ACTion targeting emerging infectious disease) the goal of which was to optimize and coordinate the existing research capacities during emerging and re-emerging infection threats. In February 2017, he was appointed Director of the French Aviesan Institute of Immunology, Inflammation, Infectiology, and Microbiology and The chair of the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness International Network until 2020. In May 2019, he was appointed The Chair of « The European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership » (EDCTP) board (until May 2022). Since 2021, he is the Director of the ANRS Emerging Infectious Disease French Funding Agency, French Aviesan Institute of Immunology, Inflammation, Infectiology, and Microbiology
Professor Yazdanpanah has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and makes frequent presentations at numerous national and international meetings.
- ANRS-MIE
Luis Pizarro
TREASURER
Luis Pizarro
Dr Luis Pizarro has led the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) since September 2022.
Dr Pizarro is a medical doctor and global health leader. He also serves as founder and member of the Global Health 2030 think tank, as scientific advisor for Global Health at Sciences Po Paris, and as board member of Sidaction. Having led medical projects for several years in West Africa, he became the first CEO of Solthis, from 2007 to 2019, successfully developing the international health and solidarity organization to become one of the leaders in health in West and Central Africa. In 2020, Dr Pizarro joined Unitaid’s leadership team during the COVID crisis to lead the international organization’s HIV portfolio and related access programmes.
Born in Chile, and trained as a medical doctor at the University of Paris, he also holds a masters’ degree in Political Sciences from Sciences Po and an executive health MBA from a joint programme of EHESP School of Public Health, the London School of Economics, and the ESCP European Management School
- DNDi
Mahlet Kifle Habtemariam
Mahlet Kifle Habtemariam
Dr Mahlet Kifle Habtemariam is a Senior Regional Engagement Advisor at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With over a decade of practice in public health, Dr Mahlet has vast experience in formulating health policies and strategies and directing health programs at national and regional levels. In her previous role at Africa CDC, she worked as a Principal Program Officer, leading the executive office and the agency’s key priority initiatives. Before that, she held progressively responsible positions at the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia, including the Chief of Staff role in the Office of the Minister.
Dr Mahlet is an active member of various technical advisory committees and governing boards. She holds a Doctor of Medicine from Addis Ababa University and a Master of Public Health from University College Dublin. She is a Takemi Fellow of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and an African Public Health Leaders Fellow at Chatham House.
Africa CDC
Jean-Jacques Muyembé-Tamfum
Jean Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, PhD
Jean Jacques Muyembe Tamfum is a Professor of Microbiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Kinshasa. He is the the Director General of the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) and the President of the Congolese Academy of Sciences (ACCOS). Doctor of Medicine, Surgery and Childbirth, Lovanium University of Kinshasa in 1969, he co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976 and co-invented the monoclonal antibody “mAb114”, approved by FDA as an Ebola treatment under the name “EBANGA” in December 2020.
Prof. Muyembe has won several awards, including the Christophe Mérieux Prize (Paris) in 2015 for his pioneering work on Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Africa; the 3rd Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize (HNAP, Tokyo) in 2019; and the “CPHIA 2021” Excellence Award, presented by the African Union and the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
In 2018 and 2019 he was named by Nature among the 10 personalities who mattered in science and in 2020 he was shortlisted by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the year.
He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the universities of Lubumbashi (DRC, 2017), Antwerp (Belgium, 2019) and Harvard (USA, 2022).
- MD
Bernhards Ogutu
Bernhards Ogutu
Senior Principal Clinical Scientist with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the scientific team leader of the Centre for Research in Therapeutic Sciences (CREATES)- Strathmore University. Dr. Ogutu received MBChB, MMed and PhD from the University of Nairobi and is a certified Physician Investigator. Dr. Ogutu has held different positions since 1992 from practicing paediatrics at several hospitals and lead clinical trialist in a number of product evaluation protocols. His areas of research include clinical trials, disease pathogenesis, clinical therapeutics with a bias in malaria and clinical trials capacity development in Africa.
- KEMRI
Rafael Vilasanjuan
Rafael Vilasanjuan
Rafael Vilasanjuan is Director of Policy and Global Development of ISGlobal since March 2011.
He also worked for over 12 years with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), starting as Communication Director in 1995 and later as General Director of the Spanish section of MSF. In 1999, when the organization was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace, he was appointed General Secretary of MSF International until 2005. During this period, he worked in conflict areas such as Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, West Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia. As General Secretary of MSF, he was a founder member of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), which develops and delivers new drugs for diseases in developing countries. Mr Vilasanjuan still collaborates with the DNDi. He has also participated in observatory missions with the National Democratic Institute, monitoring electoral processes in the Middle East.
He was chair of the GAVI Civil Society Organizations Steering Committee from 2017 to 2018 and member of that committee from 2016 to 2019. He was Alternate Board member representing the civil society organizations of GAVI from 2020 to 2022 and from January 2022 he is Board member representing the CSO of GAVI.
- ISGlobal
Marc-Alain Widdowson
Marc-Alain Widdowson
Dr Marc-Alain Widdowson is the director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp. He graduated from the University of Cambridge in Biological Anthropology and Veterinary Medicine and completed a MSc in Communicable Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is a seasoned infectious disease and public health epidemiologist with specialty in epidemic viruses. Dr Widdowson worked for the Department for International Development (DFID) in Zimbabwe and Bolivia, and after 2 years in the National Institute for Public Health in the Netherlands in the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training, he moved to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 18 years, the last four years of which were in Kenya, working on global epidemiology and prevention of epidemic viral gastroenteritis, influenza, Ebola. Zika, MERS-CoV and other epidemic viruses of global health security concern. Dr Widdowson has published more than 290 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, largely on the epidemiology and control of epidemic viruses.
- ITM
Observers
Ahmed Mandil
EMRO
Margareth Ndomondo-Sigonda
AUDA-NEPAD-AMRH
Elizabeth Lindiwe Makubalo
AFRO
Marie-Pierre Preziosi
WHO R&D Blueprint
Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft
General Delegate
PANTHER
Nick White
Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit
SAB Chair
TBD
CAB Chair
TBD
