Name: Dr. Yaw Bediako Sampong
Descent: Ghanaian
Position: CEO/ Co-Founder
Company: Yamaachi Biotech
Industry: Pharmaceutical
Awards: –
Education: Obtained his PhD at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, and post-doctoral fellowships at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme in Kenya and subsequently at the Francis Crick Institute in London.
Background: Dr Yaw Bediako is a Ghanaian immunologist with a broad interest in investigating immune function among African populations in order to better address immunopathology associated with infectious and non-infectious diseases among these populations. In June 2020 he founded Yemaachi Biotech (www.yemaachi.com) an immunogenomics start-up based in Accra. Yemaachi’s vision is to lower the financial burden of disease on the African continent by leveraging state-of-the-art molecular and cellular biology to develop novel diagnostic tools and therapeutic agents that work uniformly well irrespective of genetic background. In November 2021, Yaw was selected as a Calsestous Juma Science Leadership Fellow by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Yaw is also a fellow of the Ghana Young Academy and an Affiliate member of the African Academy of Sciences.