Professor Tulio de Oliveira

Professor Tulio de Oliveira is the Director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) at Stellenbosch University and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Since January 2024, he has also served as the Deputy Director of the Genomic Surveillance Unit at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. He is also Professor of Bioinformatics at the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking at Stellenbosch University and the College of Health Sciences at UKZN. He was a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, U.K., from 2004 to 2006 and a Newton Advanced Fellow at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) and at the University of Edinburgh from 2015 to 2019.  Professor de Oliveira played a pivotal role in South Africa’s COVID-19 response through his visionary application of genomics and bioinformatics. He has worked for over 20 years with viral outbreaks, including HIV, Hepatitis B and C, Chikungunya, Dengue, SARS-CoV-2, Zika, and Yellow Fever Virus. He has more than 300 publications, and his contributions have significantly advanced our understanding of these pathogens and their impact on public health.

The scientific community has recognised Professor de Oliveira’s exceptional contributions. In 2021, he was included in Nature’s list of ten scientists driving scientific developments. The MIT Technology Review also acknowledged his leadership as one of the pioneers of ten breakthrough technologies in 2022. In the same year, he received the Gold Medal Award from the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) for his outstanding contributions to the field. Additionally, the Government of South Africa has honoured him with the Batho Pele Award for his remarkable societal impact, and he was the co-recipient of the German Africa Prize in 2022 for his contributions towards identifying the COVID-19 Omicron variant. Most recently, the Portuguese President awarded him the Order of Merit Medal, and he received the Discovery Health Lifetime Achievement Award. He was named one of TIME100’s most influential people in 2022 and featured in TIME100 Health for 2024.

Speaker Location South Africa