Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Willy Kiprotich Tonui, EBS is Chief Executive Officer at the National Biosafety Authority (NBA), Nairobi, Kenya. He is responsible for the day to day management of the Authority. The role of NBA is to regulate research and commercial activities involving GMOs in Kenya.

Before joining NBA he helped to establish a Biorisk Management and Dual Use Research (BIORISK-DUR) programme and Office of Health Safety and Environment (OHSE) at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI).

Dr Tonui currently serves as the Chair of the newly formed Association of National Biosafety Agencies in Africa (ANBAA). He has also served as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the global International Federation of Biosafety Associations (IFBA), and he is the only recognized Registered Biosafety Professional (RBP) in Africa. He is also the Founder Member and Past President of African Biological Safety Association (AfBSA) a professional association that seeks to congregate practitioners of biological safety, promote biosafety and biosecurity as a discipline through awareness and to facilitate the sharing of biosafety and biosecurity information in the African region.

Willy studied for his BSc (Biological Sciences and Chemistry) at Kurukshetra University (India), MSc and PhD in Immunology (specialty in vaccine development) from Kenyatta University (Kenya) and did his Post-doctoral training at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Colorado State University, USA.

Willy has a career-long history of consistently supporting national programmes, regulations and policies in Kenya. He is a registered Expert on Environmental Impact Assessment and Audit (EIA/EA) by the National Environmental Authority (NEMA); and a Registered Biosafety Professional (RBP) ABSA. He is also an author of Laboratory Safety Handbook and three other books on Fire Safety and Prevention.

For his distinguished service he was recently decorated with The “Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear (EBS)” by the President of Kenya.

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Director Technical Services

Prof. Dorington O. Ogoyi is the Director of Technical Services at the National Biosafety Authority since February, 2012. Prior to his appointment, Prof. Ogoyi was an Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology and Director of Research and Development at the Technical University of Kenya (TUK). He also taught for several years at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Nairobi.
Over the years, he has carried out research and mentored a number of graduate students in a wide range of research areas in Molecular Biology and Proteomics. Prof. Ogoyi obtained his BSc, MSc. and Ph.D. (Biochemistry) degrees from the University of Nairobi in the years 1986, 1990 and 1994, respectively. He gained his postdoctoral exposure at the Department of Experimental Zoology, University of Utrecht, Netherlands (1995-1996) and at the National Institute of Entomological Sciences (NISES), Tsukuba, Japan (2000-2002).  He is also a holder of MBA (Strategic Mangement) from Moi University.
Prof. Ogoyi is currently the National Focal point for the Biosafety Clearing House and a member of the Advisory Adhoc Committee on Biosafety Clearing House.  Recently, he was also selected to represent the African region in the Compliance committee of the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety.   Prior to joining NBA, he  participated in a number of Biotechnology and Biosafety awareness creation  initiatives in the country incuding the agitation for the enactment of Biosafety Act, 2009. He is curretly a member of the African Food Safety expert network under the African Biosafety Network of Experties (ABNE).  
Since joining NBA he has facilitated the establisment of a functional Biosafety regulatory framework in Kenya through establishment  of a transparent and prectictable  mechanism of review of applications based on sound science.

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