Dr. Linda Debrah BSc, MSc, PhD

Dr. (Mrs.) Linda Batsa Debrah is a Senior lecturer in Medical Parasitology at the Department of Clinical Microbiology, School of Medicine and Dentistry, KNUST Kumasi. She obtained her BSc. (Hons) degree in Biological Sciences in 2001 and Masters’ degree in Clinical Microbiology in 2006. In 2008, She got a sponsorship from German Research Foundation (DFG) to do her PhD at the Laboratory of Prof. Achim Hoerauf at the Institute of Immunology Microbiology and Parasitology in Bonn University in Germany and KNUST.

She has risen through the ranks from research assistant’s position to research scientists’ position from 2003 to 2011. She then become a research fellow and a coordinator of all filariasis research projects at Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR) from 2011 to 2016. She is currently the Principal Investigator of projects investigating biomarkers for filariasis. She is also a Co-Principal Investigator of a number of projects which includes a multi-country trial sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and Research which is Tackling the Obstacles to Fight Filariasis (TAKeOff). As a Co-Principal Investigator she is also investigating the Effect of Mansonella perstans on BCG vaccine-induced protection against childhood.

She works on Infectious diseases with Neglected Tropical Diseases as the main area of research. This includes lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis. Finding a cure for filariasis and elucidating the genetic basis of lymphatic filariasis is one of the cornerstones of her research work.

She has conducted a number of clinical trials in the efforts to find better treatment/cure for lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis as well as mansonelosis. In addition, she conducts research on other Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) such as Buruli Ulcer disease and Intestinal helminths as well as Human Immunodeficiency Virus disease with her focus of finding the effect of coinfection of these diseases on filariasis.

She has a number of ongoing research activities sponsored by German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), German Centre for Infection Research (DZIF), German Research Foundation (DFG) KNUST Research Fund (KREF) among others. She has over 30 publications to her credit (ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9620-3408).

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