Zimbabwean infectious disease physician and immunologist, Dr. Tariro Makadzange has been named to the TIME100 Health 2026 list, TIME Magazine's exclusive list recognising the 100 most influential people.
Makadzange was named alongside the likes Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the United States' Secretary of Health, Catherine Wu, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School pioneering personnalized cancer vaccines, and Daniel O'Day, CEO of Gilead the companies that created the drug lenacapavir, the first twice-yearly medication approved by the U.S. FDA to prevent HIV infection.
"This recognition is humbling and a reminder of the collective nature of our bold mission. It is not about an individual. It reflects the collective work of investigators, nurses, trial participants, and regulators across Africa who are building a new model for clinical research," shared Makadzange in a statement.
"For too long, African health systems have been treated as endpoints for innovation developed elsewhere. We want to prove that Africa can design, lead, and execute trials that meet the highest global standards."
Fewer than 4% of clinical trials are done in Africa, so Dr. Tariro Makadzange, a clinical assistant professor at Stanford University, founded the Africa Clinical Research Network (ACRN) in 2024 to radically increase that number.
The organization provides support for researchers and institutions that would like to perform clinical work on the continent, in order to develop a system that centers on African patients and needs. While it is early days still, ACRN has partnered with the Gates Foundation to lead an HIV vaccine trial and begun to build a database of hospitals interested in participating in future trials.
In 2025, Makadzange and colleagues put out a call for sites, with more than 500 institutions across the continent replying to sign up.