Prof. Pontiano Kaleebu is Director of the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) and Director of the MRC/UVRI and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Uganda Research Unit. He is a professor of immunovirology at the LSHTM.

He holds a medical degree from Makerere University, a diploma in immunology and a PhD from University of London.

He is a Fellow of Royal College of Physicians-Edinburgh, a Fellow of Imperial College London, Faculty of Medicine, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences of United Kingdom and a Fellow of the Uganda National Academy of Sciences. 

He has co-authored more than 350 publications in peer reviewed scientific journals and book chapters. His main research interests are vaccine research including understanding protective immune responses, viral diversity and resistance to antiretroviral drugs.

He co-founded the UVRI-IAVI HIV Vaccine Program a partnership with IAVI that has contributed to HIV vaccine research. He chaired the African AIDS Vaccine Programme (AAVP) under WHO for many years.

He is a member of the Ministry of Health COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Committee, the COVID-19 Vaccine Access Committee and chairs the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 Laboratory Testing and Quality Assurance Committee. In addition, he chairs the Ministry of Health Technical Working Group on HIV drug resistance and sits of the ART subcommittee.

He sits on a number of other National and International committees including those for WHO, Africa CDC, EDCTP and USA NIH among others. He is a member of the EDCTP General Assembly, representing Uganda and is overall coordinator of the EDCTP East African Network of Excellence, EACCR.

He has won many International research grants and trained many scientists. In addition, he has won many national and international awards including recently in 2020, Recognition of Excellence in the fight against COVID-19 and other viruses-by the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation.