Covid-19 scientist and Stellenbosch University (SU) researcher Professor Tulio de Oliveira has been recognised in the inaugural 2024 TIME100 Health list – the second time he has appeared in the publication’s influential rankings, having also been included in the 2022 list.
The list celebrates 100 people who have had the most impact on global health this year, reports News24.
De Oliveira, a world-renowned scientist in the field of genomics, is the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) at SU, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), and deputy director of the Genomic Surveillance Unit at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the UK.
“I am deeply honoured to be recognised once again … and to be included in the distinguished TIME 100 Health list of 2024,” he said. “This acknowledgment underscores the importance of collaborative research efforts in addressing global health challenges."
In 2020, he led a team of researchers and scientists who discovered the SARS-CoV-2 Beta variant, and in 2021, they discovered the Omicron variant, which swiftly emerged as the dominant global variant of the virus.
In past decades, he has led multiple networks of scientists in South Africa and Africa and in 2023, launched the Climate Amplified Diseases and Epidemics (Climade) consortium in an effort to characterise diseases and pathogens that are amplified by climate change.
Apart from being listed in the journal Nature as one of the top 10 people who helped to shape science in 2021, De Oliveira was also included in the MIT Technology Review list as one of the leaders of the 10 breakthrough technologies in 2022.
News24 article – SA Covid-19 scientist named in inaugural TIME100 Health list (Restricted access)
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