Edward Nelson Kankaka

Edward Kankaka is a Research Scientist and Research Director at the Rakai Health Sciences Program in Kalisizo, Uganda. His research focuses on advancing strategies toward an HIV cure that can be effective for most people living with HIV.

Although antiretroviral therapy (ART) can suppress HIV replication, it does not eliminate the virus, which can persist in latent reservoirs and rebound if treatment is stopped. His work aims to better understand these processes and inform improved therapeutic approaches.

He integrates laboratory data with computational approaches, including bioinformatics, statistics and simulation, to study HIV persistence in individuals on ART. His research examines viral latency, viral evolution over time and immune responses to infected cells.He also collaborates with local and international partners to explore strategies that may target or expose latent HIV and reduce the virus’s ability to persist in the body.