Justin Nono Komguep
Justin Nono Komguep is a research officer at the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation in Cameroon with a secondment as a research fellow and team leader at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
Dr Nono was born in Cameroon in the city of Bafoussam. He completed his BSc, BSc (Hons) and MSc in Biochemistry all with distinction at the University of Yaoundé 1 working on the influence of hemoglobinopathies on antiparasitic therapy (Malaria).
As a result of his work he was awarded a PhD Fellowship of the German research foundation to join the University of Wuerzburg and work on the characterization of secreted products of parasitic helminths and their potency in facilitating infection. In 2013, he was awarded the highest distinction (Summa Cum Laude) for his PhD work that enabled the characterization of novel immunomodulatory parasite factors.
In 2014, under a NRF postdoctoral fellowship, Dr Nono joined the University of Cape Town in South Africa to work on the identification of host protective mechanisms against helminths, with a focus on Schistosomes. In 2015, he was awarded a Claude Leon Foundation postdoctoral fellowship and then a Sydney Brenner Fellowship from the Academy of Sciences of South Africa to further his work on schistosomes by generating and employing novel murine models of inducible gene deletion to identify host factors that dictate susceptibility to infection and pathology during helminth infections.
In 2016, he was appointed as a research Officer within the laboratory of schistosomiasis research and parasitology of the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation of Cameroon, jointly with his subsequent establishment in 2018 as a team leader working on the Immunobiology of Helminth infections within the division of Immunology of the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Currently, as an European Union EDCTP fellow, a UK Royal Society FLAIR Fellow and a WHO-ESPEN Schistosomiasis expert, Dr Nono primarily engages in clinical schistosomiasis research between Cameroon (clinical site) and South Africa (advanced experimental site). He is the author and longtime reviewer for reputable scientific journals and a strong advocate of local capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa in support of the transition towards locally-driven research to facilitate the control and elimination of schistosomiasis globally.