Dr. Mboup chose a career in the laboratory at the Dakar Military School of Health focusing on microbiology, virology, and immunology. By 1981, at the age of 30, he got his masters in chemistry-biochemistry at the University of Dakar and his masters in immunology at Institute Pasteur in Paris. Later, he completed a PhD in bacteriology-virology from the University de Tours in France, and in Pharmacy from the Cheikh Anta Diop University (University of Dakar at that time), where he became a Professor in microbiology.

In 1985 at the Hospital Le Dantec, Dakar, Dr. Mboup was among the first research team which performed some of the fundamental work in the identification of HIV-2. In Dakar, Dr. Mboup worked with French scientist Francis Barin, who put him in contact with a laboratory at Harvard University run by Dr. Max Essex, chairman of the Harvard AIDS Institute and a researcher in Essex’s lab, Dr. Phyllis J. Kanki. Later, the Inter-University Convention, University de Tours and Limoges in France, Harvard in U.S and Dakar in Senegal, were created.