Employees of the Month: Asha Patil and Yonas Abebe

The Sanaria employees of the month for December 2022 are Asha Patil and Yonas Abebe.

Asha is a member of the Gametocyte team and was nominated for employee of the month for how she seemingly effortlessly to lead the Gametocyte production team to great success this year. With her leadership and management, Asha working with Yonas and team have seen the production of high PfSPZ numbers and excellent campaigns with PfSPZ-LARC2. Asha exemplifies a responsible, dependable, and dedicated scientist. The knowledge, experience, and expertise that Asha shares when she undertakes projects ensure great successes.  Asha organizes, and manages a big team – ensuring all materials and supplies, the Vialing team, the environmental monitoring team, the cleaning and QA room release teams for each production campaign. Asha is always so cheerful, ever so helpful -even though those who have been trained in aseptic gowning will attest that they all had to go through Asha’s critical eye. Congratulations Asha!!

Yonas is a member of the Gametocyte team and was nominated for employee of the month his exceptional leadership in Sanaria’s Pharmaceutical Operations Program. Pharmaceutical Operations is a huge complex program. It encompasses the generation of SOPs and batch records that are designed specific to every trial, the coordination of materials and supplies, shipping, performance of syringes preparations, blinding procedures in operations, the training of operators at sites all over the world, documentation, Quality oversight and liaising with Regulatory and Clinical teams. Yonas has not only mastered but leads and has taken the responsibility for these various areas. The generation of an SOP involves a team of operators who test a protocol with weights to verify the exact volume needed to deliver an exact quantity of PfSPZ per dose in humans. Yonas leads this effort. Yonas has the impressive knowledge, he works with full dedication, diligence, and care in the overseeing of this complex program. Yonas has worked hard and in the process, he has the trust of site Principal Investigators, Pharmacists and site operators. It is Yonas the site Pharmacists call in the middle of the night (from Africa and Asia) when they have queries. In his always agreeable, ready to help, always smiling nature, one may not be aware of this amazing powerhouse (Yonas!). He has contributed his hard work and dedicated it to ensure Sanaria is successful. We are so aware, so grateful, and honored to be working side-by-side with you Yonas. Congratulations!!