Dr Odile Ouwe Missi Oukem-Boyer, PhD, is a French senior scientist (immunology as background).  
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 has been involved in public health education and training and capacity building in clinical trials, good clinical and laboratory practices, bioinformatics and ethics. Over the last 20 years, she has administered the institutional Review Board of the Chantal Biya International Research Centre in Cameroon, provided services to various ethics committees on the African continent, trained members of an institutional ethics committee in Burkina Faso and strengthened capacities of national ethics committees in West and Central Africa through a grant funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership. Currently, she is the vice-Chair of the Cameroon Bioethics Initiative, the vice-Chair of the institutional ethics committee of the Fondation Congolaise pour la Recherche Médicale and a member of the ethics advisory committee for partnered research of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, in France.