Rose Leke
Malaria immunologist, 2024 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science laureate
Born in 1947-02-13
Related city : Kumbo
Who are they?
Rose Gana Fomban Leke was born on 13 February 1947 in Kumbo. She studied in the United States, at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College (Indiana) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, before earning her doctorate at the Université de Montréal. Emeritus Professor of Immunology and Parasitology at the University of Yaoundé I, she headed a department and the Biotechnology Centre there until 2013.
What made them famous
Her research focuses on pregnancy-associated malaria, a severe form of the disease that also endangers the baby. She founded the Cameroon Coalition Against Malaria and chaired the African commission that declared the continent free of wild polio in 2020. This work earned her the Virchow Prize in 2023, worth 500,000 euros, and then the 2024 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Award for Africa and the Arab States.
Key facts
- Treatment for a lung abscess in Limbe at the age of six first drew her to medicine.
- The African Union gave her the Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Award for Women in 2011.
- In 2019 the Cameroon Medical Council named her Queen Mother of the Cameroon Medical Community.