Nature Forum on Health Equity and the Nature Awards for Inclusive Health Research

Tajudeen is a Medical Doctor with postgraduate qualifications in Pediatrics and Public Health. He is a Fellow of the West African College of Physicians and Fellow of the Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, UK. He has years of senior level experience in Emergency Preparedness and Response, Health Workforce Development, Public Health Research, Health System Strengthening, Health Diplomacy, Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child & Adolescent Health, and National Public Health Institutes.

He is currently the Acting Deputy Director General of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), African Union (AU), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he coordinates all technical programmes and provide oversight on operations as well.

Tajudeen also doubles as the Head of Public Health Institutes and Workforce Development at the Africa CDC. He oversees the establishment and strengthening of National Public Health Institutes across AU Member States. Further, Taj coordinates the development of fit-for-purpose Public Health Workforce.

Tajudeen is a member, Global Strategic Leadership Group, Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network (TEPHINET). He is also a Member of the Scientific Council for the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors study (GBD), Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, USA. A Faculty Volunteer Member, University of Nebraska Medical Centre, Omaha, NE 68198-4350, USA. Further, Tajudeen is a member of the GAVI Alliance COVID-19 Vaccination Delivery Support Temporary Steering Committee and advisor for Johnson & Johnson’s Global Public Health Advisory Board on Preventive Ebola Vaccination.

Tajudeen has several publications in peer reviewed journals and numerous presentations at international conferences and seminars.

Akin Jimoh is a leader in promoting science and public health journalism in his native Nigeria and across the African continent. He was the first news editor for the World Federation of Science Journalists’ website and played key roles as a mentor and anglophone coordinator (2009 - 2013) in the Science Journalism Cooperation (SjCOOP) Project.  

A medical physiologist and health promotion/education specialist by training, Jimoh started his journalism career in 1990. He became a health reporter with Nigeria’s leading publication, The Guardian, where he expanded the health section to also cover areas in science and public health.  He was also involved in the conceptualization of the ‘revenue spinning’ CompuLife section at the Guardian, focusing on emerging markets in technology in Nigeria in the 1990’s.  

He has been a consulting editor at Africa Science Technology and Innovation (AfricaSTI) News, an online science publication. Jimoh regularly volunteers for the Nigeria Academy of Science in the area of science communication.

Ben trained as a virologist, starting with an undergraduate degree in virology from the University of Warwick, UK. His PhD, in influenza virus genetics and immunoevasion, was from Public Health England and the University of Reading, UK, with Maria Zambon and Wendy Barclay, and included a brief stint with Malik Peiris at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests then moved to smallpox vaccines, viral ion channels and cell adhesion, while he was a postdoc at Imperial College London with Geoffrey Smith, FRS. Ben then joined open-access publisher BioMed Central in 2011 as an editor and then associate publisher and was Head of Communities & Engagement at Springer Nature from 2016, running the Nature Research Communities and other online-engagement activities for researchers. Ben joined Nature Medicine in 2021, with responsibility for news and opinion content, and is based in the London office.

Akin Jimoh is a leader in promoting science and public health journalism in his native Nigeria and across the African continent. He was the first news editor for the World Federation of Science Journalists’ website and played key roles as a mentor and anglophone coordinator (2009 - 2013) in the Science Journalism Cooperation (SjCOOP) Project.  

A medical physiologist and health promotion/education specialist by training, Jimoh started his journalism career in 1990. He became a health reporter with Nigeria’s leading publication, The Guardian, where he expanded the health section to also cover areas in science and public health.  He was also involved in the conceptualization of the ‘revenue spinning’ CompuLife section at the Guardian, focusing on emerging markets in technology in Nigeria in the 1990’s.  

He has been a consulting editor at Africa Science Technology and Innovation (AfricaSTI) News, an online science publication. Jimoh regularly volunteers for the Nigeria Academy of Science in the area of science communication.

João received his medical training at the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,  where he also earned a PhD degree, studying mechanisms of tolerance to self-antigens in autoimmune diseases. In 2009, he was named a Pew Latin American Fellow in the Biomedical Sciences, moving to the United States to pursue studies on T cell antigen recognition and in vivo dynamics of the immune responses with Ron Germain, at the National Institutes of Health. João was the senior editor for immunology and translational medicine at Cell from 2013-2017 and in December, 2017, he was appointed Chief Editor of Nature Medicine, where he leads a team of editors and journalists covering news, opinion and research across the entire landscape of translational and clinical research. He has given talks about medicine, science and publishing in many international conferences, and has championed efforts to raise ethical standards and transparency in the reporting of translational and clinical research. João cares about supporting young investigators, creating opportunities to make scientific publishing more inclusive, and harnessing the potential of scientific research to reduce health inequalities globally. Since 2021, he has served as a member of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Abdool Karim, is an infectious diseases epidemiologist whose seminal contributions spanning over three decades have shaped the global HIV prevention landscape, notably in prevention technologies for women. She demonstrated that ARVs prevent sexually transmitted HIV that laid the foundation for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP); and has provided insights in Africa and globally on the impact of Covid-19 on HIV and in the evaluation of Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics. She continues to study the evolving HIV epidemic and develop HIV prevention technologies for women.

Abdool Karim is the President of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (USA); and Fellow of The World Academy of Science, Royal Society of South Africa, Academy of Science of South Africa and the African Academy of Science. She is the Associate Scientific Director of CAPRISA; Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, Columbia University; and Pro-Vice Chancellor for African Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her research contributions have been recognized nationally and internationally with over 30 honours including South Africa’s Order of Mapungubwe, 2014 TWAS-Lenovo Prize; the John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award; the 2020 Christophe Mérieux Prize; and the 4th Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research.

Nicki's research group works with the integration of data from human genomics, epidemiological datasets and routine health data for research. They also build tools for more ethical and equitable sharing and governance of data and biospecimens originating in Africa.

Collin Louw works to protect the rights of the San people in South Africa- the Khomanisan !Xun & Khwe and the /Xam people. The council promotes and protects their rights through legal advice and coordination of development programmes engaged. Collin is also responsible for negotiations of Traditional Knowledge and the use of medicinal plants like the Hoodia and other plants.

Kelly Chiable is a Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cape Town (UCT) where I hold the Neville Isdell Chair in African-centric Drug Discovery & Development. I am also a Schmidt Sciences AI2050 Senior Fellow, Founder and Director of the UCT Holistic Drug Discovery and Development (H3D) Centre, and Founder and Chairman/CEO of the H3D Foundation.