Gerald Misinzo is a veterinarian and Professor of Virology at Sokoine University of Agriculture. From 2021 he has also been awarded the Oliver R. Tambo Africa Research Chair for Viral Epidemics, by the South Africa National Research Foundation (NRF) and Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) in partnership with the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), the Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Foundation and the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
Professor Misinzo leads the World Bank-designated SACIDS Africa Center of Excellence for Infectious Diseases of Humans and Animals in East and Southern Africa (SACIDS-ACE). In 2018, Professor Misinzo was part of the team engaged with the transformation of the Southern African Center for Infectious Disease Surveillance (SACIDS) into the SACIDS Foundation for One Health, an institute for infectious diseases on behalf of the wider SACIDS partner institutions. He assists the Director of SACIDS in coordination and interface with the SUA Management and Corporate system.
When SACIDS revamped its 5-year Strategic Research Programmes in 2022, Professor Misinzo was peer-elected to lead the Genomics and Metagenomics research programme. He has provided genomics expertise to national authorities and defined the molecular epidemiology of peste des petitis ruminants and African swine fever viruses in Tanzania and neighboring countries.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Misinzo collaborated with the Tanzania Public Health Laboratory in the genomic diagnosis and tracking the evolution of SARS-CoV-2. This experience also stimulated him to conceive the concept of “Community-level” pathogen genomic surveillance, based on the Oxford nanopore technology and mounting a mobile genomics laboratory facility in a modified four-wheel drive vehicle. Accordingly, a major thrust for his research team is to “optimize” an approach for “affordable genomics” so that together with the digital AfyaData syndromic surveillance, SACIDS can also offer genomic diagnosis and surveillance at “source” i.e. geographically at sub-national level even to village level and zoologically in animals, including wildlife.
Professor Misinzo is a member of the (i) the peste des petits ruminants (PPR) Global Research and Expertise Network (PPR-GREN) for the global eradication PPR, and (ii) the Standing Group of Experts (SGE) on African swine fever of the Global Framework for the progressive control of Transboundary Animal Diseases (GF-TADs) for Africa. He served on the Tanzania Presidential Scientific Advisory Committee for the COVID-19 Pandemic and continues to serve on the Tanzania Technical Committees for Human Vaccine/Vaccination Programme, Pharmacovigilance and Human DNA Services and Research.