Dr Essa Suleman is a Principal Researcher and the Research Group Leader of the Aquaculture and Veterinary Diagnostics and Vaccines group at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa. He holds a PhD in microbiology from Nelson Mandela University (NMU), and is a Visiting Researcher in the Protein-Structure Function Research Unit (PSFRU), in the school of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Witwatersrand (WITS). Prior to joining the CSIR, his research focused on molecular disease epidemiology of important veterinary and zoonotic diseases in wildlife. His current research focuses on developing novel point-of-care (POC) diagnostic technologies for diseases affecting human, animal and environmental health. He also leads the Aquaculture, Diagnostics, Feed and Health program which focuses on developing technologies to improve aquaculture including (i) conventional and point-of-care diagnostics for viruses such as infectious spleen and kidney necrosis virus and tilapia lake virus that pose a major threat to the global aquaculture industry, (ii) improved feed and probiotics, and (iii) development of next generation vaccines based on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technologies. He is also CSIR’s lead scientist for the One Food program that aims to apply a One Health approach for food safety, security and sustainability. The One Food program is a collaboration of 16 local and international partners including the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra, UK), Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas, UK) and other research and academic institutions in South Africa such as the HSRC, ARC and SANBI. He has significant expertise in driving multi-stakeholder partnerships across several countries, and intellectual property including licensing and commercialization.