Prof. MUTESA Léon

"Professor Leon Mutesa is an MD, PhD, and serves as the Director of the Center for Human Genetics at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda, a center he established in 2006. He obtained his MD from the University of Rwanda in 2003 and earned his PhD in 2009 from the University of Liege, Belgium, where he also completed his postdoc in 2011. Significant involvement in academics, clinical genetic research, genomics, and epigenomics, as well as building research capacity, have all been hallmarks of his career. He has held several prestigious positions in the health sector in Rwanda. A pioneering figure in the field of genetics and genomics, Professor Mutesa has spearheaded the development and implementation of Rwanda’s reference center for human genetics, the only facility of its kind in East Africa. He is the Principal Investigator of several research grants funded by NIH, EU, EDCTP, NIHR, Wellcome Trust among others. He is a research pioneer of the transgenerational epigenomics of trauma and PTSD in Rwanda, a research programme focusing on the transgenerational transmission of the epigenomic impact of genocide exposure and PTSD in women survivors and their offspring of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. He has supervised/mentored over 100 MSc, MMed, PhD, and Post-Doc fellows from Rwanda and from overseas universities. With more than 200 peer-reviewed publications to his name, he is a prolific contributor to scientific research. His outstanding contributions to human genetics have been recently recognized with the prestigious (Human Genome Organization) HUGO African Prize 2024 and he also been nominated Fellow of African Academy of Sciences (FAA). Currently, he serves as a board member of the International Vaccine Institute's Board of Trustees. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leon-mutesa-8837487a/?originalSubdomain=rw Wikipedia Page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Mutesa "