As Director, Laboratory Research with IHVN, Dr. Nicaise Ndembi brings to IHVN, a wealth of knowledge in molecular virology, Clinical trials, HIV therapy, HIV drug resistance and bioinformatics. Dr. Ndembi has set up the Asokoro Laboratory Training Centre for genotyping (HLA-typing, HIV drug resistance testing, HCV, HBV and HPV genotyping).

Dr Ndembi , who was educated at University of Yaoundé-I, Cameroon and Kanazawa University, Japan, has a Ph.D in Molecular Virology and an MPhil and M.Sc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Prior to his resumption in IHV-Nigeria, he was the Head, Molecular Virology Laboratory, MRC/UVRI Research Unit on AIDS, Medical Research Council (UK), and Uganda Virus Research Institute. He has also worked in academic and managerial capacities in Japan and Cameroon.

Dr. Ndembi has several national and international fellowships and grants to his credit. He has received a scholarship for PhD studies from the Japanese Ministry of Education, a senior Fellowship award from the European and Developing Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), and he is co-investigator on several NIH, MRC, CDC research grants (Jaffar S et al. Lancet. 2009 Dec 19;374(9707):2080-9). He is a member of the PharmAccess Technical Advisory Board for resistance evaluation in Africa. He served as a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) on the WHO HIV ResNet Laboratory Working Group. Dr. Ndembi has authored and co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications in high impact factor journals and over 100 abstracts and proceedings. He is part of the senior research team that characterized HIV-1 group O, HIV-1 group N and HIV-1 group P (Vallari A et al. J. Virology February 2011 85(3):403-7 ). He is a member of the DART Virology clinical trial group in Africa (DART Trial Team. Lancet 2010 Jan 9;375(9709):123-31).