Brenda Apio Okech has experience as a scientist as well as manager of research. She has Clinical trial monitoring experience and has worked for several sponsors including GSK and AMANET. She previously worked for European Vaccine Initiative on a consultancy basis; besides her current role as the Chairperson Board of Directors FINASP, she is the program Director at Uganda Virus Research Institute – Entebbe.
Brenda obtained her PhD from the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Malaria Immunology. She worked at Med Biotech Laboratories, in Uganda, as a Senior Scientist, mainly assessing natural human responses to malaria vaccine candidate antigens. Brenda was trained by WHO/TDR for one year on malaria clinical trial management at GlaxoSmithKline in Belgium. She received Project Management training at EVI. She worked with malaria vaccine clinical trials for African Malaria Network Trust in Tanzania as Project Manager, and for Statens Serum Institute, Copenhagen while based in Uganda. Brenda has been a trainer on Project Management, SOP development, Good Clinical Practice and Good Clinical Laboratory Practice. She has a passion for capacity building and has been mentoring young scientists variously, including teaching immunology and supervising graduate students at Makerere University.