Prof. Mutesa, is an MD, PhD and full professor of human genetics, currently working as Director of Center for Human Genetics that he created in 2006 at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences-University of Rwanda. He obtained his MD from the university of Rwanda in 2003 and his PhD in 2009 from the university of Liege-Belgium where he also completed his post-doc in 2011. Throughout his career he has been immensely involved in clinical services, academics, research, capacity building, and management in the health sector. He served as the Director of Department of Clinical Laboratory Dept. at the Kigali University Teaching hospital, which is the largest referral hospital. He has been Director General of Medical Research Center in Rwanda Biomedical Centre under Ministry of Health, where he coordinated health related research activities in all national medical institutions. He developed several research policies within the health sector and founded the Rwanda health research commission which reviews research grants and studies before approval by Rwanda National Ethics Committee.
Since starting his genetic career, Prof. Mutesa has pioneered new developments and implementation of a reference centre for medical genetics in Rwanda, which is the only one in the East African Region. He has advocated for health insurance coverage for genetic examination for patients in Rwanda and currently, most health insurances cover the karyotype exam, a test to see whether the number of someone’s chromosome number is normal and other cytogenetic and molecular tests. He has supervised/mentored over 90 MSc, MMed, PhD, and Post-Doc fellows from Rwanda and from overseas universities. He has published over 170 peer-reviewed papers. Prof. Mutesa is a member of various expert committees and has led various regional and international research consortia and fora. Over the past 15 years he has participated in several international research and training collaborations. Currently, he is dual-PI/PD of a NIH grant- National Cancer Institute (NCI)- U54-HIV/HPV Cancer Prevention, Treatment and Pathogenesis: Rwanda/Einstein (1U54CA190163), the goal of this project is to screen for HPV in a large cohort of HIV+ women and MSM population.
He also serves as PI of NIH/H3Africa grant – National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-Transgenerational Epigenomics of Trauma and PTSD in Rwanda (U01MH115485) with aim to characterize the transgenerational transmission of epigenomic impact of genocide exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women survivors of the Rwandan genocide and their offspring (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-022-01028-9 ). Since the COVID-19 outbreak in Rwanda, Dr Mutesa and his research group have implemented various research projects aiming at building human capacity for SARS-CoV-2 laboratory diagnostic and management. Together with his group they have published a Nature’s paper on their discovery pooling testing strategy (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2885-5 ) which shows a cost-saving approach for better use of SARS-CoV-2 limited testing resources. He is principal investigator of a national prospective cohort study aiming at assessing COVID-19 vaccines immune response in Rwandan population.
He is currently leading 2 major clinical trials one on malaria (multi-centre Phase III randomised controlled non-inferiority clinical trial to compare the efficacy, safety and tolerability of Triple Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies versus first-line ACTs + placebo for the treatment of uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Africa; a study by the Development of Triple Artemisinin Combination Therapies (DeTACT));and another one on COVID-19 mRNA vaccine candidate (A Phase I/IIa (Multicenter, Open Label, Dose Escalation, Phase I/Multicenter, Observer -Blinded, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Phase IIa) Trial to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability and Immunogenicity of the STP2250 mRNA-Based COVID-19 Vaccine Administered as a Booster to Healthy Adults Aged 19-55 Years Old), both funded by Oxford and International Vaccine Institute, respectively.
In overall, Prof Mutesa is leading various research groups working on different research programmes including infectious diseases (HIV, Malaria, NTDs), genomics and genetics, as well as epigenetics.
He also serves as a board member of International Vaccine Institute (https://www.ivi.int/international-vaccine-institute-appoints-two-members-to-its-board-of-trustees-representing-ecuador-and-rwanda/ ).
