About
Professor Khuzwayo C. Jere is an NIHR Global Health Professor jointly appointed at the University of Liverpool and the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS) in Malawi. He leads the Virology Research Group at the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome (MLW) Research Programme and co-founded the African Enteric Viruses Genome Initiative (AEGVI). He is also a core member of the Malawi National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (MAITAG) and has led the national Diarrhoea Surveillance (DIARSURV) programme since 2017.
Professor Jere’s research focuses on the evolutionary mechanisms of enteric pathogens, host immune responses to key diarrhoeal viruses, and the effectiveness of enteric vaccines in African populations. He currently leads several multinational programme grants and research consortia, including the Sequencing and Antigenic Cartography of Enteric Viruses (SACEV) and Enterics for Global Health (EFGH), with studies spanning Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact international journals.
Prof. Jere began his scientific career at MLW in 2003 as a Graduate Research Scientist while completing his BSc at the University of Malawi. He subsequently pursued further studies in South Africa, earning a BSc (Hons) and MSc in Medical Virology from the Medical University of Southern Africa (now Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University). During this time, he also managed a rotavirus vaccine trial laboratory within the MRC Diarrhoeal Pathogens Research Unit (DPRU).
He later obtained a PhD in Biochemistry (Virology) from North-West University, South Africa, followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship at DPRU. In 2013, he joined the University of Liverpool as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, focusing on the performance and immune correlates of rotavirus vaccines. In 2016, he was awarded a prestigious Wellcome International Training Fellowship in Tropical Medicine, enabling him to return to Malawi to establish the MLW Virology Research Group and lecture at KUHeS. He was subsequently appointed to a Tenure-track fellowship at the University of Liverpool, progressing through Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and now Professor of Global Health.
In 2025, Prof. Jere was awarded the flagship NIHR Global Health Professorship, under which he leads the programme Characterising the Aetiology and Host Immunity to Diarrhoeal Infections in Africa (CAHIDA). This work aims to deepen understanding of host-pathogen interactions and identify immune correlates of protection to inform vaccine development and deployment in low-resource settings.
Prof. Jere has delivered invited talks at numerous international conferences and serves on several global scientific advisory committees. He has played leading roles in organising key international meetings, including the Mucosal Immunology Symposium (Liverpool, UK), African Rotavirus Symposia (Malawi, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria), the European Rotavirus Biology Meeting (Valencia, Spain), and the Zambia–Malawi Immunology Meeting (Lusaka, Zambia).
He has served on expert panels for the Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF) and the NIHR DHSC/UKRI GECO Health Research Call and currently acts as a Scientific Advisor to the European Rotavirus Network and a Genomics Consultant for Africa CDC. Over his career, he has mentored and supervised numerous postdoctoral researchers, PhD candidates, Master’s students, and undergraduates, contributing significantly to scientific capacity building in Africa.
Outside of his professional work, Khuzwayo enjoys watching football and training at the gym.
Emails: khuzwayo.jere@liverpool.ac.uk | kjere@mlw.mw | kjere@kuhes.ac.uk
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3376-8529