Deputy Director of Research, West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), University of Ghana; Associate Professor of Molecular Virology
Youtube Interview link: Interview with Assoc. Prof. Peter Quashie
Prof. Peter Kojo Quashie is Deputy Director of Research at the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), University of Ghana, and an Associate Professor of Molecular Virology. His research focuses on HIV, SARS-CoV-2, and epidemic-prone RNA viruses, emphasizing host–virus interactions and antiviral therapeutics. He has authored over 65 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals such as Journal of Virology, Science, Nature Communications, Cell Reports, and BMC Medicine—many as senior or lead author.
He leads several international collaborations, including serving as Ghana lead for the SPIL-OVA project under the Africa Pandemic Science Collaborative’s EPSILON network, and Principal Investigator for the Ghana site of the Global Immunology and Immune Sequencing for Epidemic Response (GIISER) program, funded by the Gates Foundation. His team is pioneering surveillance tools to detect zoonotic viruses in mosquitoes and bats.
In HIV research, he launched his laboratory in 2019 with support from a Crick African Network award. He established the WACCBIP long-term HIV Infection CoHort (WHICH), tracking up to 1,000 patients to study determinants of treatment success, failure, and viral control. He is Ghana PI for 1+2=Cure, an AIDSFonds-funded HIV cure project leveraging samples from HIV-1/2 coinfected participants. He has recently been awarded an AfOx Fellowship to implement advanced HIV sequencing pipelines in Ghana.
Prof. Quashie holds Honours and Master’s degrees in Cell and Molecular Biology from Concordia University and a PhD in Experimental Medicine from McGill University, where he trained under the late Prof. Mark Wainberg. His PhD studies, supported by a doctoral scholarship jointly funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Canadian Association for HIV Researchers (CAHR), produced 33 publications, including seminal papers on HIV integrase resistance pathways (R263K and G118R) to dolutegravir—findings that continue to inform global treatment guidelines.
He completed postdoctoral training in Structural Virology at the University of Toronto under Prof. Jeffrey E. Lee, funded by a CIHR Banting Fellowship. There, he specialized in monoclonal antibody development and host–virus protein interactions.
At WACCBIP, Quashie played a central role in Ghana’s COVID-19 response, coordinating research on serosurveillance, sequencing, immunopathology, and therapeutics. His group published landmark studies linking Ghana’s lower COVID-19 severity to malaria endemicity.
As Deputy Director, he drives WACCBIP’s research strategy, postdoctoral development, and stakeholder engagement. He also leads the Climate Health Resilience activity within the futures lab of the University of Ghana’s arm of the Africa Climate Collaborative, advancing research on climate impacts on disease trends.
Prof. Quashie represents WACCBIP in national policy engagements, including with Ghana’s National Vaccine Institute (NVI). He joined a 2022 delegation to Cuba to study COVID-19 vaccines and in 2025 is contributing to shaping Ghana’s vaccine R&D roadmap at the World Vaccine Congress.
He has supervised four postdoctoral fellows, more than ten PhD students (four graduated), ten Master’s students (three graduated), and numerous undergraduates and interns. A global citizen with experience in Ghana, Botswana, Canada, and extended stays in the UK, his trainees come from across Africa and beyond.
Prof. Peter Kojo Quashie’s social media handles are:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/peter-kojo-quashie-phd-19951723
X (Twitter): @DrPKQuashie
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4114-5460