Rizwana Mia joined the SAMRC in February 2015. She is responsible for developing the South African Precision Medicine program and incorporating the South African Precision Medicine Think Tank. She has spearheaded strategic partnerships in creating programmatic research as well as core infrastructure to enable and position South Africa in the area of precision medicine. She conceptualized the business plan, secured funding, designed and established the SAMRC Genomics Centre which launched on the 29 July 2019. The Centre boasts a large-scale high through-put workflow to localize large scale human genome sequencing studies on the African Continent. She currently serves as an advisory board member to the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform (KRISP).
Rizwana has a strong genetics and product development background having trained as a geneticist. Her prior experience culminates a decade spent building her career at the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA). She began her career when she established a local start-up company called the Institute of Diagnostics Research. She spent 4 years establishing a facility, developing and producing monoclonal antibodies in-vitro. She played a further role as a Senior Investment Specialist focusing on building the TIA Health Innovation investment portfolio- conducting technical and commercial due diligence to invest in core technology start-ups in the health innovation space. She has also served as a board member in key successful start-up companies due to her significant experience in the South African National System of Innovation. She served as interim project manager on the Western Cape Regional Innovation Forum to devise a roadmap for a regional innovation framework. She played a key role in strategic tri-government projects such the Cape Health Technology Park Feasibility study. This focused on innovation park models to develop a relevant cluster-based innovation ecosystem. Furthermore, she has played an instrumental role in unpacking the vaccines and biological landscape and has contributed significantly to key biotechnology strategies. Rizwana continues to strive toward enabling new initiatives in South Africa and is currently focused on further development of the South African Precision Medicine Program, as she participates as a co-investigator in the EU-Africa Personalized Medicine (EU-Africa PerMed) Consortium to drive the ecosystem development of the Precision Medicine Agenda for South Africa.