Prof. Tulio de Oliveira is the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP). He is also the Deputy Director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute’s Genomic Sequencing Unit in the UK. He played a leading role in the response to COVID-19 in South Africa through his visionary application of genomics and bioinformatics. He is a Professor of Bioinformatics at Stellenbosch University and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has worked for over 20 years with viral outbreaks, including HIV, Hepatitis B and C, Chikungunya, Dengue, SARS-CoV-2, Zika, and Yellow Fever Virus. In 2021, he was listed in Nature as being one of the top ten people who helped to shape science. He was also included in the MIT Technology Review list as one of the leaders of the ten breakthrough technologies in 2022. He is the recipient of the Gold Medal Award from the South African Medical Research Council, the Batho Pele Award from the Government of South Africa for his contributions to society and was the co-recipient of the German Africa prize for his contributions towards identifying the COVID-19 Omicron variant. Most recently, he was listed among the TIME100 Health 2024 by TIME Magazine.