Emeritus Professor Rose Gana Fomban Leke is a renowned Cameroonian immunologist and parasitologist, Fellow of CAS, AAS, and TWAS. She served as Head of Department and Director of the Biotechnology Centre at the University of Yaoundé I until 2013. She chairs the National Medical Research Institute (IMPM) and serves on numerous national and international scientific committees.
She has received major honors including the AU Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Award (2011), ASTMH International Honorary Fellowship (2015), and the 2023 Virchow Prize for Global Health. In 2024, she won the L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Award for Africa and the Arab States. She was named a 2018 Heroine of Health and featured as ICON #24 in Forbes Africa (2021).
Professor Leke chairs the GAVI Independent Review Committee and the MIM Secretariat, and has held key roles with WHO, including chairing the African Commission that declared Africa wild polio-free in 2020. Her research focuses on malaria immunology, and she is a strong advocate for global health and health systems strengthening. Through the HIGHER Women Consortium, she mentors emerging scientists and promotes STEM education for girls across Cameroon.