Dr. Samba Sow is Director General for INSP and Director General of the Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) at the Mali Ministry of Health and Social Development. He is also a Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Since CVD-Mali’s inception, Dr. Sow has headed the implementation of field and hospital-based epidemiological studies and clinical trials in the study of vaccine-preventable diseases. Previously, Dr. Sow served as the coordinator for WHO Multi-Center Field Trial on Leprosy Chemotherapy and has been an investigator on many other studies. He received his MD in Medicine from the National School of Medicine and Pharmacy of Mali and his MSc in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Sow’s honors include the 2000 Paul Laviron Prize in Tropical Medicine from the University of Marseille, France. He was also named the Commemorative Fund Lecturer of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene in 2006. He received the ROUX Prize in 2017 and became Minister of Health and Public Hygiene of Mali. As Minister, he started a large reform of health systems in Mali to improve the quality of health services and under-five and maternal health.