Dr. George PrayGod is a Principal Research Scientist at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR). He trained in Medicine and Epidemiology and in 2010 received a PhD degree in International Nutrition and Health from the University of Copenhagen. Between 2011 and 2016, he had two stints of postdoc fellowships with colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in UK where he studied body composition and diabetes among HIV patients. Based on his postdoctoral work, in 2016, he received a large 5-year DANIDA grant to establish a cohort to investigate risk factors for diabetes and its complications among HIV-infected patients in Tanzania. In 2019, he received a 4-year EDCTP Senior Fellowship grant to investigate the role of environmental enteroptahy on HIV-associated diabetes and currently he is a national principal investigator of the Long-term health after Severe Acute Malnutrition in children and adults: the role of the Pancreas study, an MRC-UK funded multi-country study investigating the impact of malnutrition on future risk diabetes in Tanzania, Zambia, India and Philipines. During 2023-2028, he is co-leading with Danish investigtaors a ground breaking study investigating the impact of Climate Change on non- communicable diseases in Tanzania.
Dr. PrayGod was a departmental head from 2010 to 2012, Deputy Director of the Mwanza Intervention Trials Unit, a collaborative research programme between the LSHTM and NIMR from 2012 to 2015 and interim Director of Research Coordination and Promotion from 2023 to 2024. Besides research, Dr. PrayGod is an honorary Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Health, Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences where he contributes in supervision and research training of MSc and PhD students.