Ambroise Wonkam

Ambroise Wonkam is a Cameroonian medical doctor and professor of medical genetics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His research is in sickle cell disease, the genetics of congenital hearing impairment, and ethics in human genetics. He is the current president of the African Society of Human Genetics.

Biography Education Ambroise Wonkam was born in Yaoundé, Cameroon. He studied at the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Yaoundé I, where he received his MD in 1995. He received his doctorate in Medical Sciences in the Department of Morphology on the topic Burden of sickle cell disease and prenatal genetic diagnosis in Cameroon (French: Fardeau de la drépanocytose et diagnostic génétique prénatal au Cameroun ).

Career Wonkam is a medical practitioner in African and European countries. He joined the University of Cape Town as faculty in 2009, where he studied sickle cell disease and why its severity and mortality varied between individuals. He became president of the African Society of Human Genetics in 2019. In 2021, he was named director of genetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He has proposed that the project be funded by African countries. In 2022, he was a guest editor for special issues of Nature calling for the decolonization and elimination of racism in science.

Distinctions

Prix Denber-Pinard (2003) for best thesis, University of Geneva Faculty of Medicine

Clinical Genetics Society International Award (2014), British Society of Genetic Medicine

Alan Pifer Award (2021), University of Cape Town

Notes and references