Dr Odile Ouwe Missi Oukem-Boyer, PhD, is a French senior scientist (immunology as background). Since 2016, she is country representative (Mali and Niger) for Fondation Mérieux. She was also the acting Director General at the Centre d’Infectiologie Charles Mérieux du Mali from 2018 to 2020.

During the last 22 years spent in Africa, her career has progressively evolved from primary researcher to director general in various research centres in Gabon, Cameroon, Niger and Mali. Her main research interests are tropical infectious diseases (tropical neglected diseases such as schistosomiasis, human African trypanosomiasis, malaria, HIV/AIDS, meningitis, etc.), clinical trials, bioinformatics and health research ethics). She is involved in public health education and training and capacity building in clinical trials, good clinical and laboratory practices, bioinformatics and ethics.

She has administered the institutional Review Board of the Chantal Biya International Research Centre in Cameroon, chaired the Cameroon Bioethics Initiative and is member of 3 ethics committees in Central Africa. Member of the Human Heredity and Health (H3) Africa ethics and regulatory working group until 2016, she is now Scientific and Advisory Board member of H3ABioNet, the bioinformatics component of H3Africa.