Christopher Z Abana
University of Ghana, Ghana
Biography
Christopher Zaab-Yen Abana has research experience in virology such as HIV, influenza and viral hemorrhagic fevers. He also has laboratory experience with molecular biology techniques such as genome extraction and purification, polymerase chain reaction (conventional and real time), restriction fragment length polymorphism, agarose gel electrophoresis and sequencing. The lack of an HIV-2 viral load assay in Ghana for the management of such patients on therapy urged him to win a grant from the HIV Research Trust to undertake training on the HIV-2 viral load assay in New York, USA. His current research focusses on optimizing the first HIV-2 viral load assay in Ghana and determining the association between gut microbiota and Ghanaian HIV infected individuals. He has won several awards notable among them include Best Young Scientist 2016 (College of Health Sciences, Ghana) and Best Poster Presentation (Feb 2017, Noguchi Research Conference, Ghana).