Tony Kebba was born in Uganda on 18 March 1970. He undertook his medical training at Makerere University in Kampala, graduating in 1995. Between 1995 and 1996 he undertook a Ugandan Ministry of Health attachment as Medical Officer at Kabarole Hospital in Fort Portal, Uganda. This was followed by a year as the Medical Coordinator of the National Sleeping Sickness control programme in the south-eastern region of Uganda, based in Jinja – home to the source of the river Nile and close to his family home. During this time Tony gathered much useful experience in practical medicine and public health and began to appreciate the devastating effect that HIV was having in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa. It was not surprising therefore that in 1997 Tony decided to join the Joint Clinical Research Centre in Kampala to take on the task of Medical Officer/onsite Research Clinician in the first HIV vaccine trial in Africa.

Tony was acutely aware that Africa was in urgent need of much more intensive research to increase our understanding of HIV infection. Thus in 2000, he approached Jimmy Whitworth, who was at the time the director of the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) Ugandan Unit on AIDS, which is based at the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) in Entebbe. He was awarded a highly competitive and prestigious Rogers Research Fellowship, which enabled him to begin examining the immunological correlates of protection from HIV infection in a carefully identified cohort of exposed but seronegative individuals, as well as protection from disease progression in individuals who, although infected with HIV, remained well for long periods of time. Understanding why such individuals are protected from HIV would be potentially highly significant for vaccine development.

From 2000, Tony started working with Dr Pontiano Kaleebu and Professor Frances Gotch, who acted as his mentors in the years to come. Dr Kaleebu, head of the MRC Basic Science Programme, was his immediate supervisor in Entebbe. Professor Gotch and her team at Imperial College London trained Tony as an immunologist and supervised his PhD studies, which were funded by the Wellcome Trust from 2001 until 2004.

At this time, he could easily have relocated to Europe or the USA. However, believing passionately that research capacity should be developed in Africa where it was needed, he decided to stay in Uganda and to continue to work with the MRC/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS.

This characteristic and most admirable decision was rewarded by his appointment as a senior scientist and project leader in the MRC Basic Sciences Programme, the award of a Research Career Development Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust, and funding from other donor agencies including the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and the European Developing Countries Trial Partnership. He was also appointed as an honorary lecturer at Imperial College London. Right up to his untimely and sudden death, Tony was working hard with his team in Uganda – sharing his knowledge and skills, and carrying out his important research on several sites.

Tony could not have done all he did in such a short time without the support of his beloved wife, Christine, and his extended family. He was inordinately proud of his lovely daughters, Ishi and Imri, for whom he had great plans. It is the responsibility of those of us who respected and admired Tony to support his family as best we can, and to carry on his scientific work – for Uganda, for Africa and for the rest of the world.

By Frances Gotch, Jimmy Whitworth, Pontiano Kaleebu and Heiner Grosskurth.

Anthony Kebba Trust Fund

A trust fund has been set up in memory of Tony Kebba. Anyone who would like to contribute should contact Jimmy Whitworth at the Wellcome Trust: j.whitworth@wellcome.ac.uk.