Trainee Abena Kissi-Twum

Ms. Abena Adomah Kissi-Twum was born in Cape Coast, Southern Ghana. Studying biochemistry at the undergraduate level, she developed interest in biomedical research through lab sessions and a brief stint working independently on the anti-proliferative and apoptosis induction activity of Morinda lucida extracts in HL-60 cell line. After school, she did her national service and remained as a research assistant at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research. She worked on projects focused on drug discovery in cancer, Buruli ulcer, tuberculosis and malaria. Appreciating the infectious diseases burden, she enrolled in a Masters in Molecular Cell Biology of Infectious diseases at the University of Ghana.

Reading about the system developed by the Telesnitsky lab to tag and track HIV intrigued her. She is interested and excited about the countless possibilities this technology can be applied in answering pertinent research questions even beyond HIV. Her research and training in the Telesnitsky lab is in partial fulfillment of her master’s degree and she also holds a fellowship from the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens.