Dr Yaw Bediako

Yaw Bediako is a Ghanaian immunologist and biotech entrepreneur. Yaw obtained a PhD at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, and undertook post-doctoral fellowships at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme in Kenya and subsequently at the Francis Crick Institute in London. In 2019 he took up a faculty appointment at the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) at the University of Ghana and was one of 5 scientists selected in the inaugural round of the prestigious Crick Africa Network Fellowship. 

Soon after returning to Ghana, Yaw became increasingly concerned about the almost complete lack of biotech industry across the African continent. Convinced that private biotech is crucial to the establishment of a sustainable R&D ecosystem, in June 2020 Yaw founded Yemaachi Biotech (www.yemaachi.com) an immunogenomics research company. Yemaachi’s vision is to leverage Africa’s unrivalled genetic diversity to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic targets for cancer, that work uniformly well irrespective of genetic background.

In November 2021, Yaw was selected as a Calestous Juma Science Leadership Fellow by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Yaw is also a fellow of the Ghana Young Academy and an Affiliate member of the African Academy of Sciences. In 2022, Yaw was recognized as one of the top 40 under 40 business people in Ghana, and in January of 2023, was selected as one of the 100 most influential Africans by the New African magazine.