Current Position
Director-General, National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL)
Background
Dougbeh Christopher Nyan is a Liberian medical doctor, biomedical research scientist, inventor and social activist. He earned his medical degree in human-medicine from the Medical Faculty Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin of the Humboldt-University of Berlin in Germany.
Experience
Dr. Nyan has expertise in infectious disease research, diagnostics and public health. He was trained and also worked as scientist at the US National Institutes of Health and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. In 2014, Dr. Nyan testified before the US Congress on the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, provided a roadmap to congress to end the outbreak, proposed the establishment of the Africa CDC, and the establishment of public health entities in the African countries. He was active in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in the US and Africa as Member of the Maryland Medical Reserve Corps and the Diaspora COVID-19 Pandemic Focus Group. Dr. Nyan currently serves as Director-General of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) and is Chairman of the Incident Management System of the Mpox Response in Liberia.
Achievements
He is the inventor of the US-patented rapid multiplex pathogens diagnostic test (the Nyan-Test) that detects and simultaneously identifies multiple infections in less than an hour, including Malaria, COVID-19, Ebola, HIV, HCV, HBV, Yellow fever, ect. He is the winner of the 2017 African Innovation Special Prize for Social Impact for his invention.
Publications & Research
Dr. Nyan has published in reputable scientific journals such as “Nature” (Scientific Reports) and is a member of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and the American Association for the Advancement of the Sciences (AAAS).
