IN 2008, COLLEN MASIMIREMBWA RETURNED TO HIS NATIVE LAND OF ZIMBABWE
That fact in and of itself may not be remarkable, but the story you will read in this book is truly remarkable. Collen returned home to found a biomedical research and training institute that since then has changed the way not only Africa looks at genetics and drug development, but also the way the world looks at and studies them.
In The AiBST Story: Celebrating Twenty Years of Health Research & Innovation, you will hear from the African Institute of Biomedical and Scientific Technology's founder along with a cadre of scientists, professors, and researchers who will share their perspective and describe their role in the AiBST story. It will be clear, however, that their contributions would not have been possible without the vision, courage, and determination of one man: Collen Masimirembwa.
About Collen Masimirembwa
Collen Masimirembwa is a scientist and academician specialising in drugs and diagnostics innovation for Africa. He currently serves as the chief executive officer and founding president and of the African Institute of Biomedical Science and Technology (AiBST) in Harare, Zimbabwe. Born in 1967 in Zimbabwe, he pursued studies in biochemistry and pharmacology at the University of Zimbabwe and at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He is Distinguished Professor of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. After a ten-year work experience as a Principal Scientist at AstraZeneca Pharmaceutical Company, he returned to Zimbabwe with a vision to build capacity for drug discovery and development in Africa. To accomplish this, he attracted research-funding support from various international funding organisations, including pharmaceutical companies. His research on the genomics of African populations and its implications for drug discovery, development, and deployment have won him many national, regional, and international awards-including the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) award for innovative genomics research in Africa (2017) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMG) Calistous Juma Science Leadership award (2021). Collen is a highly published and cited researcher and is a fellow of the Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences (ZAS) and of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS).
