Assan Jaye is Professor of Global Health Education and Researcher Leadership at the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (MRCG-LSHTM). He is also the Head of MRCG Research Training and Career development Department. Prof Jaye’s research interest spanned over 27 years as HIV immunologist and created a subregional HIV-2 research network that described the status and characteristics of non-progressive HIV-2 infection.  During his HIV work he developed innovative strategic program and management for the delivery and evaluation of researcher leadership trainings that would develop the capacity of researchers to impact on scientific outputs.  This culminated into the formation of the creation of the West African network for capacity building on clinical research, that over the years, has now developed to form the Horizon-EDCTP consortium of WANETAM-4. He received many professional recognition awards, including the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) International Leadership Award (2007); Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (2015); MRCG Director’s Award for Inspirational Research Leader (2013); Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Science and Technology Award for outstanding contribution in the field of Viral Immunology and Research Training (2017); LSHTM Directors award for Excellence and Innovation in Developing Students as Researchers (2018) and a Fellow of UNESCO World Academy of Sciences (2021).