Ofori Panin Sec Sch Old Student Heads Noguchi Memorial Institute
Obaapanyin Professor Dorothy Yeboah Manu is the first female to be appointed to that high office.
Joana Somiah 
An old female student of Ofori Panin Secondary School (OPASS), a 1986 year group has been appointed as the Director of Noguchi Memorial Institute Medical Research Center.
Obaapanyin Professor Dorothy Yeboah Manu became the first female to be appointed to that high office.
“OBAAPANIN” is a title given to all successful female old students of OPASS.
She takes over, from Professor Abraham Kwabena Anang who retired on July 31, 2021.
Before her appointment, she served as the Deputy Centre Leader at the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens.
She studied at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), where she obtained First-class Honours in Biochemistry.
Prof. Yeboah-Manu is a native of Akyem Abuakwa. She completed her Masters in Applied Molecular Biology of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
She is a microbiologist and Professor at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research at the University of Ghana studying host and pathogen interactions and epidemiology.
Prof. Dorothy Yeboah-Manu joined the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research as a Research Assistant in 1993. She studied the safety of street food in Ghana.
They found mesophilic bacteria in 69.7% of foods, including the staple foods fufu and omo tuo. Yeboah-Manu was the first to describe polymorphism in the mycobacterium ulcerans from an African country and provide evidence to restrict Mycobacterium africanum to West Africa.
She completed a PhD in medical parasitology and infection biology at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in 2006.
She was awarded a five-year Welcome Trust fellowship in 2012, allowing her to work on mycobacterium tuberculosis. She investigated the genomic diversity and different profiles of gene expression between mycobacterium africanum and mycobacterium tuberculosis. She is concerned about the fast spread of tuberculosis in Ghana’s urban areas.
She is on the National Faculty of the World Bank Centre of Excellence funded West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens.
She is a member of the boards of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, the World Health Organization Global Network of Laboratories Confirming Mycobacterium ulcerans Infection, and the National Buruli Ulcer Control Program.
She is chair of the advisory board of the National Tuberculosis Program. She is Vice President of the Immunological Society of Ghana.
She has contributed to two books: Towards Effective Disease Control in Ghana: Research and Policy Implications Volume 1, Malaria, and Volume 2, Other Infectious Diseases and Health Systems. She won the 2018 Royal Society Africa Prize.
She is expected to bring to bear her experience and knowledge to help Ghana achieve higher heights especially at a point Ghana is battling with the global pandemic of Covid-19.
William Ofori Akwaboa, Eastern Regional Correspondent
