EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Professor Dr. Sazaly Abu Bakar received his PhD and training in virology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, USA. Currently, he is the Director of the Tropical Infectious Diseases Research and Education Centre (TIDREC) and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Arbovirus Research and Reference (Dengue and Severe Dengue) at the  University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was appointed as a senior professor at the University of Malaya in 2012. He has over twenty five years of research experience in emerging infectious diseases especially in dengue and other arbovirus infections. he has published over two hundred papers in prestigious journals in his field and graduated over thirty post-graduate students including Masters and PhD students. He was a work package leader in the EU FP7 Integrated Chikungunya Research (ICRES) and DengueTools reserach consortia and held numerous other national and international research grants. He was the Editor and Chairperson of the subcommittee for the drafting of the Malaysia Biosafety and Biosecurity Policy and Guidelines. He was instrumental in establishing Malaysia first fully certified modular biocontainment level 3 laboratory (BSL3) and more recently the country's first fully certified mobile BSL3. Professor Sazaly maintained strong research interest in emerging infectious diseases especially focusing on vector-borne diseases.

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