Dr. Endege at World Bank. Picture - Jamhuri Files.

Dr. Endege has worked as a Research Scientist in the biotech industry and at Harvard Institute of Proteomics an affiliate of Harvard Medical School for the past 15 years performing cancer biomarkers and therapeutic targets discovery research. While at Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc he led a unit that was part of a team which succeeded in delivering 100 validated cancer biomarkers to a major pharma collaborator. He also provided leadership for the lung cancer biotherapeutics program at Millennium that led to the identification of several lung cancer biotherapeutic targets. Two of these were selected for therapeutic antibody development and further validation. His research work in cancer biomarkers and therapeutics discovery at Millennium Pharmaceutical and Chiron Diagnostics Inc has resulted into at least five issued patents in the field of cancer biomarkers and drug discovery.

Some of the oncology biomarkers discovered from the research he led are in clinical development.  He spent the last 7 years at The Harvard Institute of Proteomics, working in the RNAi field performing high throughput cell based screens to identify essential kinases in cancer cell lines, building cDNA expression clone sets and generating lenti-viral cDNA expression vectors and reagents.  In Kenya, he worked as a Research Fellow at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and as a Research Scientist at The Veterinary Research Laboratories (VetLabs, KARI, Kabete).

Dr. Endege's is also working to create a Bio-Technology Research and Drug Development Park alongside the Kenya University being planned for Kenya. He envisions that this New Biotechnology Research Park will be the home for Africa based biotech companies that will focus on research, development and commercialization of current and next generation medicines and diagnostic biomarkers for the African market and beyond.

As a Pioneer founder, he looks forward to establishing the park, the needed partnerships and technologies to enable Africans have access to needed diagnostics, medicines and vaccines. He understands limitations that arise from the challenges posed by lack of well-developed medicines to a society and the urgent need that is required to develop African based research and drug manufacturing capabilities to meet the demands of medicine that will address diseases that are unique to the continent as the population increases in African countries. 

This joint venture when incorporated will be co-localized with the Kenya University of which Dr. Endege is part of the leadership team.  The university will be located on the coastal region of Kenya where Dr. Endege visited last summer and met with Lucy of Kigum limited, from Mombasa whom the founders have assigned the task of identifying a suitable location for the university.  The other Kenya University Project Biotechnology Park he states will be considered for development in one of the counties in Western Kenya.

Dr. Endege received both his bachelor's and master's degrees in biochemistry and chemistry at the University of Nairobi, and his Ph.D. in Molecular biology with the highest distinction at the Free University of Brussels.  Dr. Endege has attended several courses focused on leadership, biotechnology project management and drug development, besides providing leadership of a number of groups in the Diaspora.

Visit www.kenyauniversity.org