Isaac Emmanuel
Omara

Isaac Emmanuel Omara is a Ugandan PhD candidate at CERI. His doctoral research utilizes structural biology and immunoinformatics tools to better understand the genomic evolution of Rift Valley fever virus across human and non-human outbreaks in Africa. His work integrates selection pressure analysis and protein structure prediction using AI-guided tools such as AlphaFold to identify and validate potential RVFV vaccine targets. Isaac completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Laboratory Technology and a master’s degree in bioinformatics from Makerere University in 2023. Prior to starting his PhD studies at CERI, he was a Laboratory Technologist at the National Reference Laboratory for Arboviruses at the Uganda Virus Research Institute, where he contributed significantly to molecular diagnostic testing, outbreak response and research on emerging and re-emerging viral infections, including Yellow fever virus, Zika virus, Dengue fever, Chikungunya virus and SARS-CoV-2. He is a GenPath Africa Fellow, contributing to pathogen genomics and translational research in Africa.