We are pioneering the inclusion of the African genome in research

Abasi Ene-Obong is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of 54gene. He holds a PhD in Cancer Biology from University of London, a Masters in human molecular genetics from Imperial College London and a Masters in Business Management from Claremont Colleges, California. He also worked as a cancer researcher and published a seminal paper on pancreatic cancer immunology, Gastroenterology Journal.

He has extensive experience operating in the US, UK and Nigerian healthcare industries. Prior to 54gene, Dr. Ene-Obong worked with leading healthcare organisations, including Fortune 100 pharmaceutical companies, academic and research institutions, and governments as a management consultant with PwC and IQVIA (formerly QuintilesIMS).

Dr. Ene-Obong founded 54gene, a genomics research, services and development company established to significantly improve the inclusion of African populations in clinical global genomics research. As the African genome is the most genetically diverse in the world, the insights gained by 54gene can power medical breakthroughs and discoveries for the healthcare of not only Africans, but the entire world.

Founded in 2019, 54gene has made the Time Magazine list of 12 innovations that would change healthcare in the 2020s and has been listed by Nigeria’s Punch newspaper as 1 of 5 innovations that would improve healthcare for Africans. 54gene also made the Fast Company list of the world’s ‘Most Innovative Companies’ in 2020. It was also awarded the best health technology solution by AppsAfrica and Dr Ene-Obong was listed as 1 of 30 most innovative entrepreneurs on the African continent in 2019 by Quartz Africa.

Delali Attipoe joins 54gene with over 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical sector ranging from logistics and supply chain management to commercial marketing and managed care. Prior to 54gene, Delali was most recently the Head of Market Access for East Africa within Roche Pharmaceuticals (F. Hoffmann La-Roche AG) as well as held former roles of increasing responsibility within Genentech (a US subsidiary of the Roche group).

A significant portion of her career and personal passion has focused, and continues to focus, on better affordability and accessibility of diagnostics and treatments for patients within healthcare systems.

In addition to her diverse work background, Delali holds a Bachelors of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Rochester; a Masters in Biotechnology (MB) from the University of Pennsylvania; a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Babson College, F.W. Olin School of Business; and received a Certificate in Health Economics and Outcomes Research from the University of Washington.

Jude leads 54gene’s corporate development team that works closely with the various business lines to identify, execute, and manage strategic choices designed to build a world class genome-based health technology platform company.

Prior to 54gene, Jude worked as a transaction and strategy adviser for over 20 years across life sciences and industrial markets (agribusiness, transportation and petrochemicals). Jude’s work involved advising clients on growth strategy (where to play and how to win; managing for uncertainty), and strategic shifts to the healthcare ecosystem evolution (e.g. rise of smart hospitals, automation and AI/ML). From a transaction perspective, Jude has advised clients on identifying investment targets, building financial models and forecasts, negotiating licensing and co-development agreements, and conducting commercial due diligence in support of M&A and joint ventures activity. Jude has deep working experience across multiple continents with a variety of sovereign, regional government, philanthropic, and corporate clients.

Prior to his current role, Jude was a partner with ZS Associates in San Francisco providing transaction support to life sciences clients. He has also served in several senior roles in consulting, industry, and philanthropy, with IQVIA, Inc., EY Parthenon, Bain & Company, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Overseas Shipholding Group, and Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte). Jude presently serves on the Board of Directors of a privately held African specialty food and snacks manufacturer, Bonita Foods, and a US listed clinical stage biopharmaceutical. Jude graduated from Swarthmore College with a double Honors B.A in Economics and Political Science.

Colm O’Dushlaine is a data scientist with over 18 years of experience in computational biology and statistical genetics of large-scale datasets.

He was formerly an associate director of statistical genetics and machine learning at the Regeneron Genetics Center, focused on integrating large-scale genetic datasets with electronic medical record information to find new drug targets.

Prior to this, he was a senior computational biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, specializing in the genetics of psychiatric disease using association scans of array, exome and genome sequence datasets.

He received a BSc in biotechnology from Maynooth University followed by a PhD from Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He gained post-doctoral experience at Trinity College Dublin and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Francis Osifo is an award winning tech entrepreneur with a decade worth of product development experience. He is currently the Vice President of Engineering at 54gene

Previously, his work has equipped leading organisations across Africa with solutions that have enabled them to translate business requirements to products; taking into account the current and future trajectory of its operations. He has led teams to build solutions for Visa, Microsoft, DFID, Private Health Alliance of Nigeria, to name a few.

In 2015, he was awarded the winner of the AppCircus Challenge representing Africa at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. His work has also earned him multiple awards from Future Awards, Africa for his contribution to innovation and technology across the continent.

Francis holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from National Open University, an alumni of Lagos Business School and Fate Foundation. He is passionate about empowering Africa’s youth by sharing his knowledge and learning on innovation, technology and career sustainability. The products he has built have gotten local and international recognition for innovation and performance. He is an alumni of Fate Foundation and Lagos Business School.

Alma is a legal practitioner with 10 years legal experience in Intellectual Property, Media, Entertainment and Employment Law as well as Oil and Gas law and transactions.

Before joining 54Gene, Alma was the Company Secretary and Executive Manager for LBD International Limited where she managed staff and oversaw the business operations and deal negotiations on the behalf of the company. She was a member of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN).

Alma’s interests lie with Compliance,Information Privacy and Data Protection. She has recently been certified by the International Association of Privacy Professionals as a Certified Information Privacy Professional with extensive knowledge on the European Data Protection Laws, the GDPR and implementation procedures for data protection.

She holds a Master’s Degree in Business Law and Law & Technology from the University of California, Berkeley Law School. She obtained her Bachelors in Law degree from the Rivers State University of Science and Technology and attended the Nigerian Law School, Lagos and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2010.

Dishan De Silva is 54gene’s Vice President of Finance. As the head of finance, Dishan oversees the accounting, business support, FP&A, audit, regulatory compliance, and treasury functions. He brings over 20 years of experience in financial and operational oversight and has protected and improved the financial health of organizations in diverse industries such as agricultural research, transportation technology, and digital media.

Prior to 54gene, Dishan was most recently at SmartBrief, Inc., a Washington DC based digital media company. He served as the Senior Vice President of Finance and was instrumental in the sustained growth and successful sale of the company. Prior to that he worked as a Consultant at TMW Systems (a transportation technology company) and in Corporate Accounting at Doane Marketing Research (an agricultural research company).

Dishan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Bluffton University, a Master of Accountancy from Cleveland State University and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Abi Bulus is an operations and communications professional with over 7 years of experience coordinating organizational procedures and implementing business strategies.

She has worked as lead on projects related to governance, politics and youth empowerment and is most passionate about helping youth in emerging economies discover dynamic ways to achieve financial security.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Sociology from Calvin College, Michigan; a master’s in International Development from Eastern University, Pennsylvania and a certificate in Public Relations and Publicity from Fullerton College, California.

Oyedeji Oluwaseun is an astute professional who is an expert in areas of Supply Chain, Logistics and Business Operations Management. Seun is currently the Country Manager of 54gene. He joined with over 17 years of cognate experience from topnotch multinational companies such as Nestle, GSK, Suntory and Swiss Pharma working across Africa.

Oluwaseun prior to joining 54gene was the Supply Chain Director at Swiss Pharma where his expertise was used by the French multinational to restart the production plant and establish their logistics distribution pan Nigeria.

A larger part of his career was at GlaxoSmithKline and Nestle overseeing various supply chain complexities for the business. He has a massive footprint in the industry as it relates to business operations and the entire supply chain modelling especially at implementation of global best practices and Change management.

He holds an MBA in Logistics Management from Coventry University, United Kingdom and Diploma in Integrated Business Processes SAP ERP (TERP 10) University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

Seun as popularly referred to is a core people-oriented manager who is deeply interested in nurturing talents with clear focus on result delivery with business objectives as the central focus in his line of sight.

Kemi Williams is a strategic and results-driven biotechnology leader with over 19 years combined experience in the pharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostics industries.

Her focus at 54gene is on establishing clinical and regulatory services with enabling infrastructure for the successful conduct of clinical trials in Africa and beyond. She brings years of driving clinical excellence, regulatory competence, and operational efficiency to position 54gene as the company of choice for end-to-end clinical development services.

Prior to joining 54gene, Kemi held positions of increasing responsibility at major biotechnology companies, such as Roche, Abbott and Medtronic. Most recently, she was the Head of Clinical Affairs for Siemens Healthineers US molecular business, where she led the development of strategies, structures, and processes for delivering global clinical studies. Some of her accomplishments include active leadership of clinical trials that supported the successful launches of multiple abdominal aortic aneurysm stents, a mitral regurgitation clip for heart failure patients, and multiple in-vitro diagnostic assays and instruments for oncology, infectious diseases and women’s health.

Kemi is passionate about advancing organizational strategies and is driven by a vision to deliver impactful healthcare solutions, through regulatory affairs oversight, clinical evidence generation, and scientific marketing. She holds a B.Sc, Computer Science from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles and an MBA from California State University, Monterey Bay.

Aminu Yakubu has over 18 years experience in health policy and health research governance in the Nigerian health system. He also has more than 12 years progressive experience in research ethics and human subject protections from local and international perspectives.

Prior to 54gene, Aminu was most recently a Science Program Specialist with Nigeria country office of the US Centers for Disease Control where he worked to ensure technical coherence and alignment with extant human subject protection policies of protocols for studies being conducted or supported by the agency. He also worked with the Federal Ministry of Health, Nigeria where he supported the National Health Research Ethics Committee in reviewing protocols for nationally representative studies, provided guidance to researchers on the application of the National Code for Health Research Ethics, and was involved in the development of several policies for human subject protections in Nigeria. Aminu Yakubu also chaired the H3Africa Ethics and Regulatory Affairs Working Group previously in 2016/2018.

Aminu holds a Bachelors Degree in Biochemistry from Bayero University Kano, Master of Public Health Degree from University of Birmingham, UK; and has received postgraduate training in Bioethics from the Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. His research interests are in research ethics governance related to genomics research and research ethics committees, health systems research ethics as well as ethics of research during disease outbreaks.

Dr. Zara Modibbo is a Consultant Clinical Microbiologist and a Fellow of the West African College of Physicians who has worked for over a decade in African health care and medical research.

In 2010, Dr Modibbo, received the Future Nigerian awards for excellence in public service. In the last few years, she has worked closely with international research groups in implementing antibiotic resistance research across African and South East Asian countries. She received her medical training at the University of Maiduguri, Borno in Nigeria and has received training in Global Health and Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health Boston MA.

Dr Modibbo is passionate about women’s health and has published several papers on cervical cancer screening in Nigeria including the first Randomised Control Trial in Nigeria on Human Papilloma Virus self-sampling in an attempt to revolutionize uptake of screening across Africa.

Jumi Popoola is a Molecular Genetics scientist with over a decade of experience. She has worked at The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital in London, in collaboration with Merck KGaA, Germany. She designed and implemented screening assays, which enabled fast tracking of drugs into clinical trials for patient benefit.

She has also worked in Chevron as well as with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, to launch the drug Prostatonin into the Nigerian market, for the treatment of enlarged prostate (BPH). She is an active participant in the global drug discovery community.

She graduated from the University of Lagos with a BSc. in Medical Microbiology, as well as from the University of Sheffield, U.K. with both a Masters degree in Molecular and Genomic Medicine and a PhD in Cancer Research.

Effie is a seasoned strategy and business development professional with a passion for healthcare innovation and improving access and solutions to healthcare for under-represented populations. She brings to 54gene almost 10 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical and healthcare technology space, and her global career has spanned three continents across Europe, Africa, and the US.

Her core experience is strategy, business development, and analytics with solid strategy consulting experience gained at L.E.K Consulting where she led strategy, business development, and due diligence projects for biopharma companies and private-equity firms. While working as a Manager in the Commercial Operations team at Biogen, she led cross-functional teams to produce strategic research and analytics projects for the executive leadership team. She has also led business development and operations for mPharma, a venture-backed digital healthcare company focused on improving the pharma supply chain in Africa – in this role, she secured key partnerships with providers, payors, pharma, and government and built a provider engagement team.

Effie holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, an MSc in Health Policy from the London School of Economics & Political Sciences (LSE), and a BSc in Pharmacology from University College London (UCL).

Bari J. Ballew is an experienced human genomics scientist with in-depth knowledge of next generation sequencing data analysis. Her focus at 54gene is on creating robust, scalable, reproducible bioinformatic pipelines, and on applying those pipelines to generate insights into the genomics of African populations.

She previously managed a team at the National Cancer Institute, at the National Institutes for Health, that was responsible for developing analysis capabilities for whole exome, whole genome, metagenomic, and genotyping array data in support of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. Before that, she worked with Personal Genome Diagnostics, where she analyzed NGS data to identify medically actionable mutations in tumors.

Ballew received a BS in cell and molecular biology from The Johns Hopkins University, followed by a PhD in biology from UC San Diego; she received post-doctoral training at the National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Hinkle established research informatics at Alnylam in 2007 and is responsible for all aspects of in-silico design of RNAi therapeutics as well as the compute infrastructure to support large scale human genetics. Prior to joining Alnylam, Greg established the bioinformatics group within the RNAi platform at the Broad Institute and worked in the bioinformatics groups of Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Cereon Genomics.

Jeff Hammerbacher is a Founder and General Partner at Related Sciences. Prior to founding Related Sciences, Jeff was the Principal Investigator of Hammer Lab, a founder and the Chief Scientist of Cloudera, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Accel, the founder and manager of the Data team at Facebook, and a quant at Bear Stearns. In addition to his work at Related Sciences, Jeff is an angel investor with Techammer and is a board member at Ciox and Cytel. Jeff has a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Harvard University.

Dr. Manuel Rivas is a biomedical data scientist focusing on population analytics using genomic and phenotype data. He develops statistical models, algorithms, and computational tools for the analysis of millions of samples, with a special emphasis on increasing diversity in genetic studies of human diseases.

Dr. Michael F. Murray’s work is focused on understanding the value of using DNA-based screening of populations in order to identify individuals with disease risk, such as cancer and heart disease, for which preventive-care interventions are available. He joined Yale in 2018 as the director of clinical operations in the newly formed Yale Center of Genomic Health.

In 2019, he led the launch of “Generations”, a population health project that will enroll at least 100,000 volunteers. This project links genomic data with electronic health data in order to enable both research and patient care delivery.

From 2013 to 2018, he was the Geisinger Health System’s first director of clinical genomics. At Geisinger he led the design and implementation of the GenomeFIRST program. GenomeFIRST delivers risk results regarding cancer and heart disease to patients and their healthcare providers, and then guides their clinical management in ongoing screening and prevention.

Prior to his time at Geisinger he was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and was the clinical chief of genetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston for nine years. He is a physician and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Genetics.

Abasi Ene-Obong is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of 54gene. He holds a PhD in Cancer Biology from University of London, a Masters in human molecular genetics from Imperial College London and a Masters in Business Management from Claremont Colleges, California. He also worked as a cancer researcher and published a seminal paper on pancreatic cancer immunology, Gastroenterology Journal.

He has extensive experience operating in the US, UK and Nigerian healthcare industries. Prior to 54gene, Dr. Ene-Obong worked with leading healthcare organisations, including Fortune 100 pharmaceutical companies, academic and research institutions, and governments as a management consultant with PwC and IQVIA (formerly QuintilesIMS).

Dr. Ene-Obong founded 54gene, a genomics research, services and development company established to significantly improve the inclusion of African populations in clinical global genomics research. As the African genome is the most genetically diverse in the world, the insights gained by 54gene can power medical breakthroughs and discoveries for the healthcare of not only Africans, but the entire world.

Founded in 2019, 54gene has made the Time Magazine list of 12 innovations that would change healthcare in the 2020s and has been listed by Nigeria’s Punch newspaper as 1 of 5 innovations that would improve healthcare for Africans. 54gene also made the Fast Company list of the world’s ‘Most Innovative Companies’ in 2020. It was also awarded the best health technology solution by AppsAfrica and Dr Ene-Obong was listed as 1 of 30 most innovative entrepreneurs on the African continent in 2019 by Quartz Africa.

Delali Attipoe joins 54gene with over 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical sector ranging from logistics and supply chain management to commercial marketing and managed care. Prior to 54gene, Delali was most recently the Head of Market Access for East Africa within Roche Pharmaceuticals (F. Hoffmann La-Roche AG) as well as held former roles of increasing responsibility within Genentech (a US subsidiary of the Roche group).

A significant portion of her career and personal passion has focused, and continues to focus, on better affordability and accessibility of diagnostics and treatments for patients within healthcare systems.

In addition to her diverse work background, Delali holds a Bachelors of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Rochester; a Masters in Biotechnology (MB) from the University of Pennsylvania; a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Babson College, F.W. Olin School of Business; and received a Certificate in Health Economics and Outcomes Research from the University of Washington.

A practicing medical oncologist, she is the Walter L Palmer Distinguished Service professor of medicine and director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics at the University of Chicago Medical Center. As a clinician scientist, Dr. Olopade’s research is focused on advancing novel strategies to prevent and treat cancer based on an understanding of the altered genetic pathways in individual patients.

Dr. Olopade has received numerous honors and awards, including honorary degrees from Bowdoin, Princeton, North Central, and Dominican universities. She is also a recipient of the Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist and Exceptional Mentor Award, an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professorship, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Franklin Roosevelt Freedom from Want Award, The Gregory Mendel Medal, and Officer of the Order of the Niger Award.

Dr. Olopade is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She currently serves on the board of directors for the MacArthur Foundation, the Lyric Opera of Chicago; and is a Scientific Board Advisor for Tempus and Cancer IQ. Dr. Olopade received her bachelor’s and medical degree from the University of Ibadan in her native country Nigeria.

Jenny has worked in finance for more than 16 years, beginning as an investment banker advising corporate clients in mergers and acquisitions, and debt and equity financings at Goldman Sachs’ Hong Kong, New York, and San Francisco offices. She has always been passionate about improving the health and lives of those living in low- and middle-income countries and spent time working and living in Kenya and China. In Kenya, Jenny spent almost a year as a volunteer consultant for Technoserve, a non-profit business consultancy for small-holder farmers and small to medium businesses.

In 2012, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) was expanding its strategic investment efforts from a pilot program to a larger scale fund. As part of a small but growing team, Jenny pushed the envelope on how private foundations could achieve charitable objectives by using philanthropic capital and program-related investments to complete equity, debt, structured finance, and guarantee investments in companies and investment funds. Jenny led transactions across the foundation’s focus areas in global health, agriculture, nutrition, and education. She represented BMGF’s interests on numerous boards including Kymab (UK), Acrobatiq (US), Ustar Technologies (China), and Owl Ventures (USA). She also serves on the Investment Advisory Committee at the Reproductive Health Investors’ Alliance (US).

Jenny graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with an AB in History of Science.

Patrice Milos is a biotech CEO with a PhD in molecular genetics and biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic and over 25 years of industry experience as an entrepreneur and senior executive operating at the intersection of genomics and medicine in companies focused on translational science ranging from start-ups to global pharmaceutical leaders.

As an expert on precision care and translational sciences across multiple therapeutic areas, she also serves as an NIH grant reviewer and sits on the tech advisory boards of Creyon Bio, Paradigm4, Binx Health, UltraPlaCad, and SeqLL.