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 joining CERI, he worked as a Laboratory Technologist at the Uganda Virus Research Institute, where he contributed significantly to 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.