AHRI - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Fellow at the Gates - Funded Institute for Disease Modeling
- Research Collaborator
Adam Akullian is a postdoctoral fellow at the Gates-Funded Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM). As a member of IDM's research team, Adam focuses on spatial, mathematical, and epidemiological modeling of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa with the goal of informing effective public health interventions. He is also Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington in Seattle. Adam has a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Washington and an Sc.B in Environmental Science from Brown University.
Job Titles:
- Data Scientist
- Research Collaborator
Adrian Dobra is a data scientist whose methodological research focuses on the development of high-dimensional multivariate spatiotemporal models, on variable and model selection, and on graphical models. His current interests are related to human mobility and migration based on geolocated temporal data recorded by wearable sensors embedded in smartphones, and on unsolicited geotagged social media data. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington.
Prof Al Leslie is an immunologist interested in the immunopathology of TB and HIV. His group at AHRI has a particular focus on the host-pathogen interactions that occur in tissue, particularly in the lung in the case of TB. Their work on the adaptive and innate immune response to TB, using flow and mass cytometry, histology and RNA sequencing, has revealed tissue-specific aspects of both the protective and pathogenic of TB immunity that may inform novel treatments and diagnostics. They make use of 3D-granuloma models to explore tissue-specific correlates of protective immunity and pathology, with the aim of identifying potential targets for host-directed therapies and biomarkers of disease progression. Novel potential TB biomarkers are tested in more accessible samples (blood and sputum) using well-established clinical cohorts in Durban and AHRI's large population research platform in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Similarly, his group is interested in understanding how HIV affects the development and maintenance of immune responses in tissue. Several of their studies have shown that HIV has a much more profound effect on tissues such as the gut and secondary lymphoid organs than on the blood, which is more traditionally studied.
Prof Al Leslie's research group at AHRI investigates the innate immune response to TB, HIV and the co-infection of these diseases, and how novel aspects of this response may potentially be exploited to improve patient outcomes. Innate immune cells are among the first to encounter invading pathogens, and the outcome of this interaction is a key factor in the subsequent course of infection. However, despite over 25 years of research in HIV and perhaps over a century for TB, there is still much about the innate immune response to both pathogens that remains unclear. This knowledge gap is partly due to the fact that aspects of the innate response are hard to study. Neutrophils, for example, which are increasingly thought to be central in the immune response to both HIV and TB, must be worked on fresh and cannot be frozen down for investigation at a later time or in a different location.
Additionally, some of the most important interactions between innate immune cells and these pathogens occur in the tissue and not in peripheral blood, which by necessity is what most HIV and TB research is based on. Through AHRI's unique collaborations and cutting-edge laboratory facilities, Leslie Group members are able to study to fresh blood, sputum and tissue samples from individuals infected with TB, with and without HIV co-infection, allowing lab members to investigate the neutrophil response to both disease states. Using multi-colour flow cytometry, ex-vivo functional assays and transcriptomic and proteomic analysis of sorted cells, scientists are uncovering new data about how this important immune subset is altered. This has already given new insights into disease pathology and highlighted potential novel biomarkers and treatment interventions.
Dr Alabi Waheed Banjoko holds a PhD from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. His thesis focused on developing a hybrid multi-objective optimisation method using machine learning techniques to ensure efficient non-clinical identification of biomarker genes which are statistically correlated with the respective groups of Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) tissue samples and make biological sense for easy interpretation. He is currently working on generating and analysing curated quality high level resolution Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) data.
Alison is a current Fogarty global health scholar and infectious disease fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her clinical research focuses on the intersection of infectious and non-communicable diseases. More specifically, she will explore the bidirectional relationship between tuberculosis, diabetes, and other comorbidities within an HIV-endemic cohort.
Job Titles:
- Member of Faculty
- Professor
Professor Alison Grant is member of faculty at AHRI and a professor of international health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She initially trained as a physician specialising in infectious and tropical diseases and HIV medicine, and continues to see patients at the Mortimer Market Centre HIV clinic in London. Alison also holds a PhD in epidemiology. Her main research interest is improving care for HIV-positive people in resource-limited settings, and preventing tuberculosis (TB). Since 1997, Alison's research has primarily been based in South Africa where her work has focussed on the development and evaluation of interventions to reduce HIV-related illness and death, and particularly HIV-related TB. Major projects she has led and collaborated on include a cluster-randomised trial investigating a point-of-care TB test and treat algorithm for people with advanced HIV disease; evaluation of South African national roll-out of Xpert MTB/RIF, a new TB diagnostic test replacing smear microscopy; investigation of how best to use Xpert MTB/RIF among people attending clinics for HIV care; linkage to care after a rifampicin-resistant Xpert MTB/RIF result and a trial comparing a single round of weekly isoniazid/rifapentine to periodic treatment.
Ashleigh was awarded an honours in biochemistry from Stellenbosch University. As a masters student at AHRI, her work involves investigating the impact of HIV on intestinal stem cells and stromal cells in the gut and how this may contribute to dysregulated gut homeostasis in people living with HIV.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor in Public Health Medicine at UKZN
- Research Collaborator
Benn Sartorius is an associate professor in Public Health Medicine at UKZN. His work focusses on spatial-temporal analysis of disease and mortality as well as associated determinants using advanced spatial statistics and modelling frameworks. At AHRI he is involved in a NIH R01 project ‘Can HIV Hot-Spots be eradicated? An intervention to decrease HIV transmission to young women in rural KwaZulu-Natal'. Benn also co-supervises PhD candidates with Prof Frank Tanser.
Bridgette Cumming received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, where she investigated the effects of antimalarial drugs and malaria pigment (β-haematin) on monocyte function. Her research at AHRI focusses on how mycobacterial infection skews the bioenergetics and metabolism of the host cell in order to establish disease.
Professor Collins Iwuji holds the positions of faculty at Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI), professor of global health and HIV medicine at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS), University of Sussex and honorary consultant physician at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, UK. Collins obtained his medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine, Abia State University, Nigeria, followed by training in general internal medicine in Birmingham. He completed his specialist training in sexual health and HIV medicine at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. Collins additionally has an MSc in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. During his doctorate degree at University College London, Collins investigated whether earlier treatment of HIV in rural South Africa will lead to drug resistance of the prevalence and form likely to make HIV elimination difficult.
Collins is involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and is the deputy lead for the medical students' clinical elective module at BSMS. He is on the training committee of the Wellcome PhD Programme in Global Health Research in Africa and one of the PhD supervisors for the programme. This programme is a partnership between LSHTM, BSMS, three other UK universities and six African partner institutions.
Job Titles:
- Physician
- Collaborating Research Fellow
Dami is a physician specialising in infectious diseases and a Wellcome Clinical PhD student at University College London. At AHRI Dami facilitates the HERB (HIV escape and resistance in the brain) study, which aims to investigate the occurrence of independent replication of HIV in the brain of South African patients with neurocognitive impairment and to study the evolution of drug resistance in these compartmentalised viruses.
Delon completed an undergraduate degree majoring in chemistry and microbiology followed by an honours degree in microbiology through UNISA. He then did a masters degree in medical science at UKZN, working with HIV. His current PhD project aims to characterise the protein signature of active and latent TB-infected lesions.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor from the Department of Geography
- Research Collaborator
Diego Cuadros is an Assistant Professor from the Department of Geography and Geographical Information Science at the University of Cincinnati, USA. He earned his PhD in Biology at the University of Kentucky. His research focuses on understanding the spatial patterns of geographical distribution of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C virus. Diego is currently working with Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI), investigating the drivers of the geographical distribution of HIV infection in South Africa.
Professor Adrie Steyn is a member of AHRI faculty, and heads up a lab at the institute. He also retains a position and a research programme at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He has a background in molecular genetics, with specific in-depth training and expertise in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) virulence and pathogenesis using different animal models. Adrie did his PhD in yeast genetics at Stellenbosch University, and went on to postdoctoral positions at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Harvard University, where he studied the genetic mechanisms of M. tuberculosis virulence and persistence. He joined the department of microbiology at UAB in 2003. In 2011 he joined the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB-HIV (K-RITH) as its first principal investigator.
Adrie has laid the groundwork for developing novel tools and approaches for studying M. tuberculosis redox homeostasis during infection and studying the effect of NO, CO and hypoxia on M. tuberculosis persistence in vivo. His team has more recently discovered a novel mechanism of action of the antimycobacterial drugs bedaquiline, clofazimine and Q203, which targets energy metabolism in M. tuberculosis. He has inaugurated a formal collaboration with the cardiothoracic surgical team at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital and leads efforts for the Human Lung Project; established to collect resected lung tissue samples from TB patients.
The main goal of Dr Adrie Steyn's research group is to understand the mechanisms whereby Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) persist for decades without causing disease, to then suddenly explode.
M. tuberculosis is the bacterium that causes TB in the lungs. Despite years of investigation and research, scientists and health practitioners today are still struggling to control and eradicate the TB epidemic. This is especially true when we try to combat persistent bacilli (the bacteria that continue to survive in the host in the presence of drugs). Persistence has been a major problem in M.tuberculosis management due to a limited understanding of the nature and mechanism of persisters. During persistence, tuberculosis enters a metabolically shutdown state which makes it difficult for anti-TB drugs to penetrate the waxy cell wall material.
The Steyn Group is currently working on several projects centred on host gasotransmitters such as nitric oxide (NO), carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S), and M. tuberculosis redox homeostasis and bioenergetics, the role it plays in latency and persistence of the mycobacterium inside the human host, and how this information can be translated into clinical uses. The mouse model for TB, as well as freshly resected human TB lung tissue, are routinely used by the Steyn group. The research group also uses extracellular metabolic flux analysis technology to measure the change in oxygen consumption rate of mycobacteria and infected host cells under different extracellular conditions (pH, carbon source, etc.). The long-term goal is to examine the mechanisms whereby M. tuberculosis reprograms host energy metabolism. The lab also investigates how this technology can be used in anti-tuberculosis drug and clinical isolate susceptibility screens.
The group is also currently working on understanding the 3D architecture and spectrum of disease of TB infected human lung. The combination of multiple 2D and 3D imaging modalities (histology, spatial-omics, micro-computed tomography) applied to tissue from human autopsies and resected lung allows a far more comprehensive understanding of infection. The goal is to combine molecular, histological and anatomical signatures of TB infection in 3D to improve prevention and treatment.
Dr Andrea Papadopoulos is a dynamic molecular biologist. She holds a PhD from Wits University, working on the M. tuberculosis cell wall. She pivoted into HIV T cell immunology for her postdoc in the Ndhlovu lab, where she channels her molecular background into spatial and single cell omics to study the HIV reservoir immune microenvironment in human tissue, piloting the first spatial omics platform in Africa. She also co-supervises a masters student, phenotyping T cell responses to commercial Covid-19 vaccines.
Dr Bongiwe Mahlobo holds a PhD in HIV immunology. Her doctoral research delved into the complex realm of HIV and sought to gain insights into the role of regulatory CD4+ T cells in the lymphoid tissues of individuals with early treated HIV-1 infection. As the CESORA programme manager, Bongiwe is responsible for the day-to-day running of the centre.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Infectious Disease Physician - Scientist
Dr Emily Wong is an Infectious Disease physician-scientist whose work focuses on trying to understand the impact of HIV infection on TB pathogenesis, immunity and epidemiology. To address these questions she uses a range of techniques that span molecular to population science.
Emily specialises in establishing unique human cohorts to address fundamental questions about infectious disease and immune responses. Emily is one of the co-Primary Investigators of Vukuzazi, AHRI's population-based health ‘omics study that links the longstanding demographic surveillance population to next-generation science. Designed to shed light on genetic and acquired drivers of health and disease, Vukuzazi defines deep human phenotypes using community-based health screening for HIV, TB and non-communicable diseases and collects biosamples to support genomic and transcriptomic study in a population of 30 000 people in the uMkhanyakude district of KwaZulu-Natal. Vukuzazi enrolled 18,041 participants between 2018-2020. Emily's research team is involved in several collaborative projects analyzing baseline Vukuzazi data and longitudinal follow-up of individuals with specific phenotypes important to understanding TB. In collaboration with the Department of Pulmonology at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital, she established Phefumula, a research bronchoscopy cohort that allows comparative study of immune cells from the mucosal surface of the lung and the peripheral blood of people with well-defined states of HIV and TB.
Emily's clinical and research interests have focused on the intersections of the HIV and TB epidemics in South Africa since she first worked in Durban in 2003. She witnessed the profound toll of the HIV-epidemic in KZN and was inspired by health care workers and activists who fought to make antiretroviral therapy available in the public sector. To try to better understand the causes of HIV-related mortality after ARV rollout, Emily worked with colleagues in Johannesburg to conduct a post-mortem needle autopsy study to determine the causes of death of patients dying in the first months of antiretroviral therapy; this work revealed very high rates of disseminated tuberculosis and tuberculosis immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome. Funded by a career development fellowship from the NIH, Emily then focused on trying to understand the immune response to TB in the human lung through study of immune cells in the respiratory mucosa. She particularly focused on a novel class of innate lymphocytes, Mucosal Associated Invariant T (MAIT) cells, trying to understand their role in anti-TB immunity and how HIV altered their function. Since the launch of Vukuzazi, Emily's research group spans the Durban and Somkhele campuses of AHRI and aims to bring together next-generation molecular techniques with population science to understand and interrupt drivers of TB infection and disease in the context of HIV hyperendemnicity.
In addition to her resident faculty appointment at AHRI, Emily is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases. She is also an Associate Scientist in the UAB Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and has a secondary appointment in the UAB Department of Microbiology. When not in the lab, Emily can be found trying to keep up with her children's interests, which these days means juggling online and in person primary school and chasing after a bicycle-riding 3-year-old on the beachfront.
Dr Erofili Grapsa is a statistician and data analyst with many years of experience in analysing complex datasets and applying advanced statistical methodologies and modelling in health, labour market, gender issues, and social sciences in general. She is interested in developing and expanding research methodology by implementing cross- and inter-disciplinary methods and in providing support for evidence-based policy making. Erofili currently contributes to the multi-country study of the impact of Covid-19 and government responses on excess mortality.
Dr Guy Harling is a member of faculty at AHRI and an associate professor at University College London. Guy trained as an epidemiologist, focusing on social determinants of infectious diseases. He has conducted research in South Africa since 2004, and additionally worked in Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Zambia. Much of this work has focused on sexual behaviour and the risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV and sexually transmitted infections, with occasional projects relating to tuberculosis and Covid-19.
In recent years Guy has focused increasingly on how social networks structure people's behaviours and thus health: either to support healthy outcomes or to place people at increased risk of infection and ill-health. This work has included studies with both youth and older adults, with the aim of developing interventions that either work through or adjust social connections to protect against poor health outcomes. Guy holds honorary appointments at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Wits University in South Africa, and at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the USA.
Throughout his career, Dr Henrik Kløverpris has worked at the interface of clinical medicine and basic science. He has established a research programme that takes advantage of unique patient and research cohorts to generate high-impact, clinically relevant discovery science.
Henrik's interest in HIV immunology first piqued at MSc level when, in 2005, he coordinated an HIV T-cell vaccine trial in Anders Fomsgaard's lab at the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2008 Henrik joined Philip Goulder's lab at the University of Oxford to study the impact of T-cell responses in control of HIV infection at the population level. Naturally, his PhD and postdoc work there led to several visits to South Africa - the epicentre of the global HIV epidemic. When Henrik was awarded a research prize from the Danish Research Council in 2012, he used that opportunity to join Africa Health Research Institute (then KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB-HIV) in Durban - a place that had left an indelible mark on him. Henrik's research was initially based in the lab of Dr Alasdair Leslie - a former colleague from the University of Oxford.
At AHRI, Henrik has worked to develop a new area of HIV research. This was made possible through a prestigious Sir Henry Dale Wellcome Trust Fellowship, through University College London, to start his own research group as a member of AHRI faculty. Henrik's work focuses on innate lymphoid cells and mucosal barrier sites in HIV infection using human tissue samples from local hospitals in and around Durban.
Job Titles:
- Physician and Clinical Investigator
Dr Ingrid Bassett is an infectious disease physician and clinical investigator with a focus on developing and evaluating innovative strategies for improving engagement in HIV and TB care and prevention in South Africa. Using a variety of methods, including observational cohort studies, randomised trials, mixed methods, and implementation science, she has been collaborating with South African researchers and clinicians since 2004. Ingrid received the HIV Medicine Association Research Award, given annually to one researcher in the US for excellence in HIV-related research.
Ingrid is dedicated to mentoring and increasing capacity for performing research. She has formally mentored >15 investigators. She serves as a faculty advisor for the AHRI education and training programme, providing feedback and offering training for early-stage investigators. She served as the director of the developmental and mentoring core for the Harvard Center for Aids Research for seven years and helped dozens of early-stage investigators with grant writing in that role. She hosts an annual ‘How to write a K award' workshop that has >100 participants annually participating from the US and from sub-Saharan Africa. She has been recognised by Harvard Medical School with a Young Mentoring Award.
Ingrid's current work includes:
Enrolling a longitudinal cohort and using an implementation science framework to evaluate the South African Central Chronic Medicine Dispensing and Distribution Program in Umlazi.
Piloting a community-based intervention for promoting uptake of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis and other sexual health services in Durban.
Leading a multi-site observational cohort in Boston, USA assessing the incidence and factors associated with post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 or "long Covid".
Her overarching goals at AHRI are:
To provide mentorship to early stage investigators in research methods, including grant writing.
To implement and evaluate health care delivery models for TB, HIV, and other STIs across disciplines and settings in South Africa.
Job Titles:
- Research Associate
- Social Scientist
Dr Kingsley Orievulu is a social scientist with an interest in multidisciplinary approaches to health and development outcomes. His current research focuses on the social dimensions of climate change, and environmental stressors' impact on HIV positive individuals' care utilisation, and health systems resilience and adaptation. He also leads projects on socio-ethical dimensions of research during disasters, and vaccine perceptions, uptake, and hesitancy among rural and urban populations in KwaZulu-Natal. Kingsley earned his PhD in development studies from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Dr Kobus Herbst is AHRI's director for population science, a member of AHRI faculty, the institute's chief information officer, and the principal investigator of the institute's Population Intervention Programme (PIP). He is director of the Department of Science and Technology funded South African Population Research Infrastructure Network (SAPRIN) at the SAMRC. He is an honorary associate professor at the school of public health at the University of Witwatersrand.
Kobus graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Pretoria in 1979, did a masters in bio-engineering at the University of Cape Town and registered as a public health physician in 1994 following a registrarship at MEDUNSA. Kobus was first involved with AHRI (in the guise of the Africa Centre) in 1998 as a consultant to assist with setting up the Africa Centre Demographic Surveillance Study (ACDIS). He joined the centre full-time as the principal investigator of this study in 2001. He was deputy-directory of the centre from 2003 until its merger with K-RITH in 2016. ACDIS was the basis of much of the early scientific achievements of the centre, including characterising the population level impacts of the HIV epidemic and interventions such as PMTCT and ART. In 2016, together with Dr Mark Collinson from the University of Witwatersrand Agincourt surveillance site, he secured a long-term and large investment by the Department of Science and Technology to integrate the three Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites in South Africa into a common population research infrastructure as part of the South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap (SARIR). This funding supports the longitudinal demographic and HIV surveillance of 100 000 individuals in PIP.
Kobus' passion is information and how information management contributes to the scientific process. In particular he's interested in the establishment of data repositories to curate datasets and promote the secondary use of research study data. To this end Kobus established the INDEPTH data repository in 2013, containing longitudinal demographic and cause-specific mortality data of more than 3-million individuals from 25 demographic surveillance sites in lower and middle-income countries. This work is extended in a collaborative project with researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to establish a repository of longitudinal population-based HIV sero-surveillance data from 10 sites in Africa, called the Alpha network.
Dr Lerato Ndlovu did her masters in plant breeding and biochemistry before moving to Dr Al Leslie's immunology lab at AHRI for her PhD. Her project focused on a set of innate immune cells called neutrophils, and investigating their unique phenotypic and genetic signature as a potential biomarker for TB disease status. She is currently a SANTHE and INSIGHT Fogarty postdoctoral fellow in the Wong group. Her postdoctoral project aims to characterise the impact of HIV co-infection on inflammation and anti-Mtb antibody responses in subclinical TB.
Dr Namani Ngema holds a master's from the University of Zululand and a PhD from UKZN. Her PhD research focused on the phenotype, location, and transcriptional profile of CD8+T cells in lymphoid tissues. Her project also explored the frequency, phenotype and functional characteristics of CTLs in paired blood and LN samples in cohorts of PLWH and how these characteristics are modulated during ART.
Dr Natsayi Chimbindi is a faculty member and a Wellcome Trust international training fellow at Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI), an honorary associate professor at the Institute of Global Health, University College London (UCL), honorary lecturer in the School of Nursing and Public Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and an honorary research associate at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine International Public Health. She is also a fellow for the HIV, Infectious Disease and Global Health Implementation Research Institute, sponsored by the Center for Dissemination and Implementation at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis to develop into a dissemination and implementation researcher.
Her specific areas of expertise include development and evaluation of adolescent and young people HIV prevention and school-based interventions. Her research interests are in co-developing and evaluating theoretically derived interventions to deliver sexual health and HIV prevention interventions in schools. She received an AHRI/UCL early career fellowship in 2019 and two seed-funding grants (2020) from NIH Adolescent Health Implementation Science Network (AHISA) and AHRI Covid-19 seed funding to develop this work. In 2021 she received a prestigious Wellcome Trust international training fellowship to expand on her research interests.
During her postdoctoral years, Natsayi was the programme manager for the HIV prevention research programme at AHRI led by her mentor, Prof Maryam Shahmanesh. She led on major mixed-method evaluation and development of complex HIV prevention interventions among young people at AHRI. She led on two trials on distribution of HIV self-testing kits (STAR) and linkage to care for young people and a pilot trial to optimise peer (Thetha Nami) delivery of antiretroviral based HIV prevention and care to adolescents and young adults in rural KwaZulu-Natal (Isisekelo Sempilo) HIV prevention. She graduated with a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2017 and has led on several key outputs from the HIV prevention work.
Dr Nothando Ngwenya is a faculty member and recent Wellcome Trust intermediate fellow at AHRI. Nothando holds honorary appointments at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and University College London.
Nothando received her PhD in 2010 in Psychology on the use of e-health for palliative and end of life care and held various postdoctoral training positions in Oncology before receiving an NRF visiting fellowship that allowed her to return to HIV work in South Africa in 2016. This fellowship was concurrent with a post to lead the development of adolescent research at AHRI funded by ViiV healthcare Positive Action for Adolescents. Nothando's long-term goal is to promote health and wellbeing for adolescents and young adults (AYA) living with HIV by developing sustainable interventions that foster resilience and equips them with self-management skills.
Nothando Ngwenya's research focuses on human behaviour in adverse and complex social-ecological systems. Her work is strongly anchored in her interest in understanding how adversity and ill health shapes behaviours, and the implications of these interactions for resilience and wellbeing when living with a long-term condition. Resilience in this context is the capacity of an individual to deal with drastic change/trauma and continue to develop and thrive. One of Nothando's main research questions is how a diagnosis of an incurable condition, such as HIV and associated uncertainties, influence individual behaviour impacting mental health decision making processes and self-management. Her research is informed by social-ecological systems research, behavioural change science, health, cognitive, social, and cultural psychology.
Nothando's research work is led by two main perspectives: 1) that of public mental health and 2) complexity-based approaches within cultural contexts. The intersection with mental health is from a public health perspective, of identifying the risks and vulnerabilities that make adolescents living with HIV more susceptible to common mental disorders and addressing those through fostering resilience with the support of lay peer counsellors. Complexity based approaches are of interest due to the acknowledgement that the dynamic interactions involved between humans and their social-ecological systems can be complex and influence resilience and wellbeing. Central to these social-ecological systems are culture, and hence the ethnographic articulation of experiences/trauma/distress within an individual's language and culture is essential to effective management of the condition. Nothando is therefore interested in local conceptualisations of ill health and wellbeing as they underlie a person's self-understanding and self-representation.
Dr Zaza Ndhlovu works on cellular immune responses to HIV-1, with the ultimate goal of finding a phenotypic target for an HIV vaccine. His research programme includes studies geared towards understanding initial events that contribute to immune dysfunction and subsequent disease progression. He uses excisional lymph node samples from acute and chronic HIV infected patients to interrogate how brief exposure to HIV influences induction and durability of protective immune responses.
Zaza received his PhD in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology from Johns Hopkins University, and did his postdoctoral training at Harvard University. During this time, he studied CD8+ T cell responses in a special group of individuals capable of spontaneous HIV suppression in the absence of antiretroviral therapy - called ‘elite controllers'. He made significant discoveries about key features of HIV-specific CD8+ T cell subsets that are able to inhibit viral replication and drive immune escape in elite controllers.
After securing a Faculty position at Harvard University, he decided to relocate his research program to South Africa. "I reasoned that incidence rates of close to 10% per year in KwaZulu-Natal would enable me to address unique aspects of the host immune response to HIV that could not be undertaken where I had trained, while at the same time I could contribute to scientific capacity building needed to meet current and future African medical challenges," Zaza said. The move brought him to the epicenter of the HIV epidemic and has allowed him access to well pedigreed acute infection samples.
Zaza's academic appointments include member of Faculty at AHRI, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Adjunct Faculty at University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is also an HHMI International Research Scholar.
Dr. Mark Siedner is an infectious diseases specialist and clinical epidemiologist. His clinical and research work is focused on decreasing the burden of infectious diseases on health and quality of life in sub-Saharan Africa. His group uses a mix of implementation science clinical trials and longitudinal cohort studies to address many of the most pressing public health priorities in the region. He is a member of AHRI faculty, and holds the titles of associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and honorary associate professor of medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Mark also has a passion for building research capacity among trainees on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. He serves as the primary mentor to dozens of medical students, medical trainees and junior faculty, and was humbled to be awarded a Harvard Medical School Young Mentor Award in recognition for these activities. He dedicates significant time to didactics, both as a teaching clinician on the medical wards and through formal leadership on research methods, and serves as a co-PI for two US National Institutes of Health research training grants based in the US and in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Siedner's research programme focuses on the intersection between population health and clinical research, and is aimed at combatting the causes of morbidity and mortality among people living with HIV in low-income countries.
Siedner, M. J., Santorino, D., Lankowski, A. J., Kanyesigye, M., Bwana, M. B., Haberer, J. E., & Bangsberg, D. R. (2015). A combination SMS and transportation reimbursement intervention to improve HIV care following abnormal CD4 test results in rural Uganda: a prospective observational cohort study. BMC Medicine, 13(1).
Job Titles:
- Professor
- South African Scientist
Professor Frank Tanser is a South African scientist whose research aims to evaluate and design intervention strategies to drive back the HIV epidemic and its negative consequences in communities hardest hit by the epidemic. His pivotal work over the past 25 years has provided substantial insights into the evolving and dynamic nature of the HIV epidemic and its key drivers, informing HIV prevention and treatment efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. His research into the population-level impacts of the antiretroviral therapy (ART) roll-out has led to wide-reaching and rapid changes to government policy on how ART programmes in South Africa are designed and implemented. In particular, a seminal study he published in one of the world's leading scientific journals - Science - was the first to show that nurse-led and decentralised HIV programmes in rural areas could be successful in reducing HIV transmission at the population-level.
Frank holds masters degrees from Imperial College London and Rhodes University and a doctorate from UKZN. He is a faculty member at AHRI and professor of global health at Stellenbosch University. He has served as a consultant and advisor to several high-profile organisations including the Mailman School of Public Health, USAID, the Futures Group International and UNAIDS. He currently serves on the board of The Lancet HIV and was member of the international scientific and technical advisory committee to the executive director of UNAIDS.
Frank has published over 250 papers in high-ranking international journals and his research has been cited over 33 000 times. He has been the recipient of numerous scientific grants and has raised over $85-million in external research funding to date. He is the founding director of the Lincoln International Institute for Rural Health - an international institute set up to study the health of rural populations across the globe. He was also a founder member of the Africa Centre for Population Health in 1998, and was responsible for building Africa's first comprehensive population-based GIS system at the centre. In 2017 Frank was honoured by the South African Medical Research Council with the gold medal scientific achievement award in recognition of the excellence of his research. The award recognises outstanding scientists who have undertaken seminal research that has impacted directly on the health of populations in developing countries. In 2019, The Royal Geographical Society awarded him the Back Award for "conducting applied research that has made an outstanding contribution to the development of national or international public policy".
Gordon was awarded his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Pretoria. His research has mostly focused on the application of molecular modelling to drug discovery (malaria, neurotransmission, coenzyme A biosynthesis). He has recently transitioned into image analysis and is interested in all aspects of computational biology and how best to apply them to disease research.
Jana Fehr wrote her master thesis in Molecular Biotechnology about modelling the spread of HIV in different environments. She is now a PhD student at the Digital Health chair of the Hasso-Plattner-Institute in Germany and collaborates with the Wong group and the the Vukuzazi programme - AHRI's next generation population-based health research platform. Her project focuses on applying machine learning on community-based data to answer fundamental questions about tuberculosis.
Professor Janet Seeley is a member of AHRI faculty, and a professor of anthropology and health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). A social anthropologist by training, over the past 35 years Janet has undertaken extended periods of research in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Papua New Guinea, focusing on broader aspects of people's lives and livelihoods that influence health and health related behaviours.
She has been engaged in research on the social aspects of HIV since 1987, beginning with postdoctoral research in Zambia. In particular, she looks at HIV across the life course and the impact of the epidemic on communities and people's lives and livelihoods. This focus has broadened recently to chronic conditions, more generally. She has led the social science programme for the MRC/UVRI research unit on Aids in Uganda since 2008. She has also been active in research on poverty, social protection, mobility and migration.
Boydell, Nicola; Nalukenge, Winifred; Siu, Godfrey; Seeley, Janet; Wight, Daniel. (2017). How mothers in poverty explain their use of corporal punishment: A qualitative study in Kampala, Uganda. European Journal of Development Research, 29
Barnett, T., Seeley, J., Levin, J., & Katongole, J. (2015). Hope: A new approach to understanding structural factors in HIV acquisition. Global Public Health, 10(4), 417-437.
Jared was awarded his PhD in 2017 while working in the Bioengineering Lab at AHRI. His PhD looked at drug resistance mechanisms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis using novel microfluidics technology. Jared has also been a Postdoctoral Research fellow at AHRI in Dr Adrie Steyn's group, where he was studying the effects of drugs on the Mycobacterium tuberculosis energy metabolism.
Kapongo Lumamba has a BSc Degree in computer science and is currently completing his Honours degree in Computing. His work involves web applications design and development, database development and maintenance, photography and graphic design and post mortem documentation to name just a few. Kapongo is also a Comrades Marathon medalist.
Job Titles:
- Research Laboratory Technician
Kasmira was awarded her master of medical science degree in HIV virology from the HIV Pathogenesis Programme, UKZN. Her masters research focused on investigating the genetic heterogeneity of the HIV latent reservoir, which is the main barrier to cure development. Her work with the Kløverpris research group is centred around studying the immune responses to HIV infection with a particular focus on immune subsets located within human tissue. Her primary duties include overseeing the group's clinical cohorts, BSL2 processing of clinical human samples, running and analysing laboratory assays as well as administrative and general lab duties.
Kievershen Nargan is qualified and registered with the HPCSA as a biomedical technologist (Histopathology). His work includes the reception, macroscopic appraisal and processing, microtome sections, histochemical staining (routine and special), immunohistochemistry as well as molecular biology of human lung specimens. Kievershen is also currently completing his Bachelor of Commerce degree.
Magalli has an MSc in cell biology from the University of Pretoria. She joined the Leslie group in 2018 as a lab technician where she helped in the sorting of tissue resident memory T-cells of tuberculosis infected lung. She is currently pursuing a PhD in immunology, investigating the dynamic perturbation of the T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire in an HIV longitudinal study.
Mahlatse graduated cum laude from UKZN in 2023 with a masters project that focused on the metabolic impact of TB disease - with and without HIV co-infection - on leukocytes. His PhD is focused on identifying immune correlates of protection induced by ongoing natural TB infection, identified by activated Mtb specific CD4 phenotype.
Mali Khethukuthula Mlaba holds an honour's degree in medical science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His background includes human physiology, immunology and microbiology. His current work focusses on assessing the functions of natural killer cells in the lymph nodes during HIV persistence using immunofluorescent staining and flow cytometry.
Dr Maphe Mthembu holds a masters and PhD from UKZN. Her work at AHRI focuses on understanding the immune response to HIV infected individuals and how infection alters immunity to M tuberculosis. She has also been working on studying the function and location of mucosal invariant T (MAIT) cells immune response from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid compared to the peripheral blood.
Mark is a postdoc in the Leslie group, currently focusing on the potential of neutrophils as a clinically useful biomarker for pulmonary and sub-clinical tuberculosis. He is also investigating the potential influence concurrent respiratory infections could have on TB disease onset. Mark completed his BSc and PhD at UKZN, where he worked on developing ligands for the Alzheimer's protein BACE1 using a combination of thermal shift assays and the zebrafish Danio Rerio model.
Dr Merantha Moodley holds a PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her project investigated the role of neutrophil extracellular traps and JAM-C in the pathogenesis of HIV comorbid with pre-eclampsia. Merantha's postdoctoral research primarily focuses on the spatial localisation and quantification of HIV reservoirs in the human brain. She is also co-working on a project which aims to elucidate the role of lymph node and gut macrophages as productively infected HIV reservoirs. Merantha is the coordinator of the AHRI tissue studies/cohort at the Ndhlovu lab.
Ms Thandeka Msebenzi has experience working across private/public sector environments, and driving dialogue and innovation platform opportunities for sustainable community development projects. She earned her MSc in housing from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her research focused on community educational programmess bridging the gap between sanitation policy and practice of ecological sanitation. Currently, she is a research coordinator on the Covid-19 grant on diagnostic testing systems in a multi-country study.
Mzabalazo (Mza) holds an MSc from UKZN. He joined the Leslie group in 2022 as a lab technologist, where he assisted with processing blood samples, lung and tonsil tissue, and was also involved with the development of an organoid model from tonsil. Mza is currently pursuing a PhD in immunology, investigating the impact of sex on immune development in sex discordant twins.
Dr Nduku Wambua has a background in clinical psychology and for the past eight years she has focused on mental health research in Kenya. Her PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal explored the construct of resilience in first episode psychosis. At AHRI Nduku is working on solutions that bridge the treatment gap, with a particular interest in the application of culturally and contextually relevant psychological interventions for the management of child and adolescent mental health problems.
Professor Nigel Klein is a member of AHRI faculty. He is professor and consultant in paediatric infectious diseases and immunology at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, London, and the Institute of Child Health, University College London (UCL). He trained at UCL and has degrees in anatomy and in medicine. He went on to establish and lead the infectious diseases and microbiology unit at the Institute of Child Health until 2014 and established and led the department of infection at UCL for five years until 2008. He leads paediatric infection research at UCL. He has a particular interest in viral and bacterial infections of vulnerable young children, particularly understanding a child's immune responses to infection and improving the care of children with HIV infection. He has a growing interest in the host microbiome and how it impacts on antibiotic treatment and the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases. Nigel joined AHRI in 2016 as lead on paediatrics.
Dr Nitalia Naidoo holds a PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She investigated gene polymorphisms and placental immunoexpression of neuropilin-1 in HIV-infected, preeclamptic African women. The aim was to understand the impact of this comorbidity and genetic susceptibility. Currently, she's involved in a multi-country research project in Africa which involves high-throughput HLA genotyping using next-generation sequencing to map HLA genes from diverse ethnic groups. It also focusses on identifying immunodominant responses targeting highly networked HIV epitopes and associated HLA alleles, providing new insights into disease progression via natural infection and vaccination strategies.
Nondumiso's masters research at AHRI focuses on empowering adolescents living with HIV and mental health issues through the establishment of a lived experience group. Her use of engagement theory and practice aims to tackle mental health and HIV stigma in rural KwaZulu-Natal. She holds a BA honours degree in social work from UNISA.
Job Titles:
- Student & Project Manager
Nsika Sithole's PhD research explores antiretroviral prescription duplications at public health clinics and the ethics surrounding health workers accessing medical records from different health facilities. Nsika is an Oxford Population Health (Ethox) fellow and is also the project manager of AHRI's IMPACT BP clinical trial.
Kingsley Orievulu, Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, Nothando Ngwenya, Sthembile Ngema, Hayley McGregor, Oluwafemi Adeagbo, Mark J. Siedner, Willem Hanekom, Dominic Kniveton, Janet Seeley, Collins Iwuji . Economic, social and demographic impacts of drought on treatment adherence among people living with HIV in rural South Africa: A qualitative analysis.
Prof Maryam Shahmanesh is a NIHR global health research professor, a physician scientist, and the director of implementation science at AHRI. Her research interests lie in the interdisciplinary space between social science, clinical medicine, and epidemiology. She enjoys using innovative and participatory methods to develop and rapidly evaluate complex interventions that improve the health of adolescents, youth, and marginalised populations.
After graduating in medicine from Cambridge University, she completed her specialist training in sexual health and HIV medicine (London). Her academic training, which has complemented her clinical training, includes a degree in social and political science from Cambridge, a masters in epidemiology from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a PhD in clinical epidemiology from University College London. She has worked for Medicines sans Frontieres in north Burma and has held a Wellcome Trust clinical training fellowship, a Walport (NIHR) clinical lectureship, and a NIH early investigator award.
A large focus of Maryam's work is building multidisciplinary research capacity through strong mentorship and support. Her 2022 NIHR global health research professorship enabled her to establish the AHRI implementation science and complex intervention centre - to support and mentor the growing number of AHRI-based scientists engaged in a range of disciplines that relate to implementation science. She also developed and co-leads the UCL masters in applied infectious disease epidemiology.
Prof Threnesan Naidoo is a specialist pathologist (forensic) with formal training and a special interest in medical law, bio-ethics & human rights. His academic affiliations are in the faculty of medicine & health sciences at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, where he is professor and acting head of department of forensic & legal medicine as well as part-time professor in the division of anatomical pathology, department of laboratory medicine & pathology. His unique background in diagnostic autopsy pathology across the public and private health sectors in South Africa has enabled the acquisition of an impressive tissue cohort for research at AHRI. He has also established a free autopsy service to promote collaborative, tissue-based research into the complex pathogenesis and sequelae of TB and HIV disease.
Job Titles:
- Member of Faculty
- Professor
Professor Ravi Gupta is a member of faculty at Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa since its inauguration, and professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge. He has had continuous Wellcome funding as a Fellow since 2007 and is currently a Wellcome Senior Fellow. His work spans the study of HIV reservoirs in the central nervous system and drug resistant HIV-1. His group's work on HIV reservoirs in myeloid cells such as macrophages has led to fundamental insights into cell cycle regulation in macrophages. More recently, the Gupta lab pivoted towards SARS-CoV-2 and this is a major focus, for example in the evolutionary biology of new variants, as well as study of chronic infection and spike protein biology. He also made major contributions to rapid diagnostics early in the pandemic.
Robert was awarded his PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His PhD focused on identifying potential alternative malaria diagnostic target proteins and raising antibodies against these. Of interest were reagents to detect P. knowlesi malaria, for which there is currently no available species-specific antibody-based test. Robert is interested in understanding the role of antibodies and B cells in regulating the immune reaction within TB infected lungs.
Shepherd Nhamoyebonde's PhD research is to elucidate the role of neutrophils in the immune response and pathogenesis of HIV and M. tuberculosis infections. The project also aims to determine the neutrophil proteomic profile in HIV and TB infected patients in order to identify proteins that will allow prediction of patients with TB.
Sibongiseni Msipa earned a bachelor of science in biotechnology from the University of the Western Cape and a bachelor of medical science (Hons) in bioinformatics from the University of Cape Town. During her honours project, she focused on creating a machine learning algorithm designed to predict how cancer cells respond to small molecule inhibitors. Currently, Sibongiseni is serving as a bioinformatics intern in the Ndhlovu lab. In this role, she collaborates with researchers and biostatisticians to perform data analysis on studies conducted in the lab.
Sifundo Nxele holds a masters degree in medical sciences from UKZN. His project was focused on the medicinal plant Clausena Anista and its ability to alleviate hyperglycemia-induced oxidative and nitrosative stress in HepG2 cells. He is a qualified independent medical scientist in anatomical pathology, having received his training at the National Health Laboratory Services. He is currently a research technician involved in the investigation of lymphoid tissue infected with HIV.
Sipho Zulu's PhD research focuses on the geographical distribution of Schistosomiasis-HIV coinfection and public health outcomes in the adult population in Hlabisa sub-district. He has research interests in parasites' biology and distribution, parasitology coinfections as well as water and sanitation.
Smart Mabweazara earned his PhD from the University of the Western Cape. His research is focused on the promotion of physical activity among people living with HIV for prevention and management of non-communicable diseases. Smart's work seeks to understand the role of physical activity in improving cardiometabolic health and developing, testing and evaluating physical activity interventions to improve cardiometabolic health amongst people living with HIV in underserved communities.
Snenhlanhla completed her master of medical science in physiology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her masters project focused on investigating the association between platelets and endothelial activation and cardiovascular risk in ART-treated African women living with HIV and obesity. In her current role as a research assistant in the Kløverpris group, she is responsible for processing and storing clinical samples (blood and tissue), maintaining the BSL2, updating and tracking clinical cohort data as well as general laboratory upkeep.
Syethemba holds an honours in criminology and forensic studies from UKZN. His research at AHRI focuses on understanding the perceived impact of mental health on medication non-adherence for adolescents living with HIV in resource limited settings, using a health behaviour model (COM-B) to conceptualise the factors that explain individual health behaviours.
Tamlyn is a PhD student in the social science team at AHRI. She holds a masters in research psychology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Tamlyn has conducted research in the clinical trial and public health systems environments in South Africa. She has held project management roles in evaluation type studies on HIV, chronic diseases and health systems in Southern Africa. She is passionate about improving the lives of adolescents. She has led and facilitated programmes that aim to develop the life skills and career goals of adolescents and young adults. Tamlyn's current research focus is to explore the perceptions and experiences on antiretroviral therapies in adolescents participating in the BREATHER Plus trial in South Africa.
Job Titles:
- Research Associate
- Social Scientist
Thabang Manyaapelo is a social scientist with rich research experience that spans multiple public health topics; including youth risky behaviours, HIV prevention, non-communicable diseases, maternal and child morbidity and mortality. His areas of interest are research methodology, human behaviour and the psychosocial determinants of health. Currently, Thabang is serving as the senior social scientist on the US NIH-funded IMPACT-BP trial that is evaluating the feasibility, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of community health worker-based hypertension care in rural KwaZulu-Natal.
Thandeka Nkosi holds a master's degree in medical sciences from UKZN. Her project showed that very early antiretroviral (ART) initiation is associated with a mitigated but measurable CD8 T cell response that is functionally competent and durable. She also previously worked as a research assistant at the HIV Pathogenesis Programme. Thandeka's PhD seeks to utilise spatial omics technologies and 3D- models to characterise microenvironments in tissue reservoirs of HIV-Infected individuals on ART and develop strategies for reservoir eradication.
Thandeka is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where she also obtained her master's in medical science (Research) in 2022 exploring how young people living with HIV develop their identity and agency. Her current research intricately explores the intersections of mental health, HIV, and trauma in socially adverse settings in KwaZulu-Natal.
Siphelele Nothando Mchunu holds an honours in microbiology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her project focused on the synthesis of selenium nanoparticles and their antimicrobial properties. After completing her degree, she worked in a pathology lab. Currently, she is pursuing her master's in Immunology at the HIV Pathogenesis Programme (HPP) and AHRI.
Thando holds a master's degree in virology and an honours degree in medical science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her work at AHRI focuses on HIV and TB immunology. Her other duties include serving as a lab coordinator, processing, and storage of human samples as well as maintenance and upkeep of BSL3 and BSL2 laboratories.
Thulile Mathenjwa has a background in nursing and holds a Masters in Population Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She is currently coordinating the HITS study that looks at whether giving a financial incentive together with an HIV decision support for men will reduce HIV viral load in the community and reduce mortality in men, as well as reduce new HIV infections in young women.
Dr Tiza Lucy Ng'uni holds a PhD in cancer and antimicrobial research from the University of the Western Cape. She later relocated to Durban to join the Ndhlovu lab where she is currently the vaccine studies group lead and oversees projects focused on HIV and Covid-19 vaccine research. Tiza is also coordinating an HLA project aimed at characterising HLA allele and haplotype frequencies in eastern and southern Africa. The data generated on HLA usage in the region will serve as an important resource for researchers developing new vaccines. Through her work, she hopes to contribute to the quest for an HIV vaccine.
Job Titles:
- Research Technician
- Position of Senior Research Technician at the HIV Pathogenesis Programme
Trevor Khaba holds the position of senior research technician at the HIV Pathogenesis Programme (HPP), where he assumes responsibility for overseeing the histology laboratory. In this role, his primary responsibilities encompass various technical procedures such as microtomy, Immunohistochemical staining (IHC), in situ hybridisation staining (ISH), GeoMx Spatial Omics, and fluorescence imaging and analysis. The focal point of Trevor's research revolves around investigating the immunology of lymphoid tissue infected with HIV-1.
Urisha was awarded a PhD in Virology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal for studies on HIV drug resistance and its impact on treatment outcomes. She is currently a 5th year MBCHB candidate and is interested in a physician-scientist career that will involve translational research. Her current research focus is on identifying strategies to address the intersection of infections and non-communicable diseases in South Africa. She is also interested in investigating subclinical TB and methods for its diagnosis.
Uvedhna Padia completed her undergraduate and honours degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her honours project focused on screening the anticancer activity of various South African seaweed species. She is currently pursuing her master's degree in virology, focussing on the development of a fluorescence-based killing assay to measure CD8+ T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2. Uvedhna is also actively involved in managing the Ndhlovu lab's social media and public engagement platforms.
Yumna Moosa is an amateur mathematician and qualified medical doctor, with a MBChB degree from the University of Cape Town. She also holds a Master's degree in Virology and Bioinformatics from UKZN. Her PhD project involves applying molecular and bioinformatic techniques to understand transmission and drivers of tuberculosis and dysbiotic vaginal microbiota in the Vukuzazi study.
Job Titles:
- Physician
- Research Collaborator
Zach is a physician-scientist focused on understanding HIV-induced changes to immunity at the level of lymph tissue - the factories that develop and refine antibodies. He is a PhD trained virologist and completed his Infectious Disease fellowship at Yale University. He holds a position at UKZN as a senior lecturer where he has a keen interest in research capacity building.