Roger Pellé

I was born and raised in Cameroon.

With a scholarship offered by Cameroon, I completed my undergraduate training at the University of Yaoundé, where I received a B.Sc. in 1979 and a M.Sc. in biochemistry in 1980. I applied biochemical techniques while working at the Institut Pasteur of Yaoundé in 1981 and 1982. With a scholarship granted by the Belgian government, I subsequently went to Belgium for postgraduate studies at the University of Louvain, where I obtained an M.Phil. in 1985 in applied biology and environment and a Ph.D. in 1989 on the identification and characterization of developmentally regulated oncogenes in embryo cells. My annex thesis demonstrated that microsatellite probes could be used in cell cloning for molecular characterization of single cells.

After my PhD study, I worked at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) as a scientist in the Biotechnology Theme. My field of activity was focused on molecular biology with emphasis on genetic engineering and identification of therapeutic targets for the rational control of diseases, immunosuppression, transformation, gene regulation and control of cell division and cell proliferation. I developed simple and efficient techniques to electrophorese RNA as easily as DNA, to identify RNA binding proteins and to differentiate trypanosome species using their electrophoretic RNA profiles. With an ILRI colleague, I developed a new molecular fingerprinting technique (RADES-PCR) to accelerate the rate of identification of important genes and their products in protozoa. I also worked on the identification of Theileria parva schizont antigens for the development of a subunit vaccine against East Coast Fever (ECF).

I served as a member of the Steering Committee of the WHO Drug Discovery Research Programme (1997 and 1998) as well as a member of the Steering Committee on Pathogenesis and Applied Genomics of the WHO TDR Programme (2001-2003). From 2002, I was a Scientific Adviser for the International Foundation for Science (IFS) and from June 2005, I was a member of the new Editorial Board of the African Union - Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) bulletin of Animal Health and Production in Africa. From 2002, I was a member of AED (Association pour l’Education et le Développement).

Since 2021, I retired from ILRI as Principal Scientist and relocated in my country, Cameroun.