PHOTO: (L-R) Dr. Dougbeh Chris Nyan, M.D., and Ambassador Ren Yisheng
By Our Correspondent
MONROVIA– The Ambassador Extraordinary Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China, His Excellency Ren Yisheng has congratulated Africa’s foremost award-winning scientist, Dr. Dougbeh Chris Nyan of Liberia for his ground-breaking scientific inventions and his voluntary services to Liberia, Africa and humanity.
“Congratulations on your scientific inventions of the rapid diagnostic tests for infectious diseases that will make detection very faster and for your services to Liberia and the world,” Ambassador Yisheng applauded Dr. Nyan during a meeting at the Chinese Embassy near Monrovia.
Ambassador Yisheng also praised Dr. Nyan on receiving two patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for his invention of infections diagnostic rapid multiplex tests dubbed the NYAN-TEST.
He stated that Dr. Nyan’s scientific works at the US National Institutes of Health and the US Food and Drug Administration is highly commendable and his [Dr. Nyan’s] medical studies at the Charite Medical Faculty of the University of Berlin in Germany is very admirable.
In response, Dr. Nyan, recognized the role played by China in aspects of Liberia’s manpower and infrastructural development,” adding that, “China’s massive progress in science, medicine, and technology is a model that developing countries could follow instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.”
The scientist in response, stated that, he “looks forward to China’s involvement in the mass production of the diagnostic kits through funding, and training of scientists and medical personnel from Liberia.”
Nyan, a medical doctor and public health practitioner, also acknowledged that China was the first nation to join West Africa in the fight against the 2014 Ebola outbreak and aided African countries with materials and testing kits in fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Together, both men recounted China’s developmental assistance to Liberia since the 1970s which ranged from manpower training, construction of the Samuel K. Doe Sports Complex, the Jackson F. Doe Hospital in Tapita, Nimba County, the Ministerial Complex, and the new terminal at the Roberts International Airport, among others.
Dr. Nyan, who is also a social political activist, further expressed “solidarity with the One China Policy as well as China’s revolutionary people-centered program of getting millions of its citizens out of poverty yearly.”
Dr. Nyan is the world acclaimed inventor of the Rapid Multiplex Real-Time Pathogen Diagnostic Test (the NYAN TEST) which detects and simultaneously identifies 3 to 7 infections using one test. His invention has received two US Patents and many awards including the prestigious 2017 African Innovation Award Special Prize for Social Impact.
He is currently in Liberia on an unpaid voluntary clinical and academic semester-long teaching mission at his Alma mater, the Monrovia College where he teaches biology, and at variety of universities in Monrovia, Harbel, and Gompa Cities, where he lectures public health microbiology, public health biology and infectious diseases.
“We hope that this meeting will further strengthen the Sino-Liberian Solidarity in science, medicine, technology, and other developments, concluded Dr. Nyan, the Chief Medical and Scientific Officers of his start-up company, Shufflex Biomed.