Dr Assan Jaye is the Head of Research Training and Career Development at MRC the Gambia Unit of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.  Dr Jaye obtained a Veterinary Medicine degree from Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria in 1988 and a PhD on Immunogenetics from Brunel University, UK in 1993. Dr Jaye is a Gambian and has worked at MRC for 25 years as a viral immunologist.  He headed the then Viral Diseases Program when his group investigated the underlying mechanisms of HIV-2 non-progression to inform HIV-1 vaccine design.  He worked as Head of MRC West Africa Collaboration from 2010-2015 at the Bacteriology-Virology Unit of Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal, when he coordinated a regional collaborative HIV-2 Research and Intervention Network. During this period, he coordinated two major regional research capacity building grants funded by EDCTP and GHRI respectively for the development of varied skills that enabled multi-centre research collaboration and clinical trials in HIV, TB and Malaria.

As Head of Training, he implemented strategic innovative training programs that deliver and evaluate researcher leadership trainings. Thus, yielding capacity that would impact on the Unit’s scientific output; and to contribute to developing researcher talents in Sub-Saharan Africa that allow multicentre collaboration. 

Dr Jaye is a member of the MRCG at LSHTM Leadership Board, member and Ad hoc chair of Scientific Coordinating Committee, member of the Gambia Government/MRCG Ethics Committee and Advisory liaison for MRCG with the Gambia Government.

Dr Jaye is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (2015) and has received professional recognition awards that include Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) International Leadership Award (2007); MRCG Director’s Award for Inspirational Research Leader (2013); Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Science and Technology Award for outstanding contribution in the field of Viral Immunology and Research Training (2017), the LSHTM Directors award for Excellence and Innovation in Developing Students as Researchers (2018) and Distinguished Science Innovation Award by the American Chamber of Commerce, The Gambia Chapter in collaboration with the Global Entrepreneurship Network (2019).