People

Tumani Corrah, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.P., P.P.W.A.C.P. Tumani Corrah is the unit director of the Medical Research Council Unit in the Republic of the Gambia. He joined the unit in 1982 as a junior clinician and progressed through the ranks as a research clinician and senior clinician, director of clinical services, and acting unit director. In 2004, he became the first African director of the U.K. Medical Research Council Unit in the Gambia. For more than two decades, Corrah has retained active research interests in tropical and infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria. His Ph.D. was groundbreaking, as he undertook one of the first trials of immunotherapy as an adjunct to the treatment of tuberculosis in Africa. He is a joint gold medal winner from the International Medical Informatics Association. He has served on the committees of many international organizations, including the African Aids Research Network (vice president), WHO Tuberculosis Task Force in Africa (member), Royal College of Physicians of London (international adviser), Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (international adviser), Visiting Committee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (member), and Partnership Board of the EDCTP (member). Corrah served as president of the West African College of Physicians and is currently the director of the college’s international office. An expert on research governance, he is a long-standing member of the Gambia government/MRC Ethics Committee, for which he served four years as chairman. He has strong links with governmental and nongovernmental organizations in Africa and throughout the world. An expert in capacity building, Corrah has been successful in establishing a number of productive, mutually beneficial North-South collaborations.