Willy Ssengooba

Ssengooba is a Ugandan scientist with 18 years of experience in mycobacteriology. He holds an Erasmus Mundus PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Amsterdam in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

He worked at the Uganda National TB Reference Laboratory in Kampala, Uganda, for five years before joining Makerere University in Kampala, in 2008. He is Head of Research, Clinical and Laboratory Services at the Makerere University Biomedical Research Centre (MAKBRC); Scientific Director of the Mycobacteriology (BSL-3) Laboratory at Makerere University School of Biomedical Sciences; and a Senior Research Scientist at the Makerere University Lung Institute (MLI).

In 2008, Ssengooba led the establishment of a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory at Makerere University, the first of its kind in the region. The laboratory has been accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP: ISO 15189) since 2014. He has also mentored the accreditation of the National TB Reference Laboratory (NTRL); the Uganda Supra-National TB Reference Laboratory; and the Joint Clinical Research Centre TB laboratory.

His laboratories have participated in several diagnostic evaluation studies, six of which have contributed to WHO endorsement, including studies on urinary LAM, TB-LAMP, GeneXpert Ultra MTB/XDR, Molbio Truenat MTB/RIF and BD MAX. He has also participated in several network studies and clinical trials, including those conducted through the TBTC, ACTG and IMPAACT networks, as well as the SHINE, STREAM2, TB Alliance NC-005, NC-006 and NC-008/SIMPLICTB, TMC-207, PRISM, BREACH and SMILE TB trials.

Ssengooba is the Uganda site principal investigator for STOOL4TB, co-principal investigator for CAGE and co-investigator for PreFIT.