Vaccine Research Hub Scientific Team

• Professor Shabir A. Madhi
  Professor Madhi is Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. A National Research Foundation A-rated scientist. Professor of Vaccinology in the School of Pathology at the University of the Witwatersrand and Director of the world-renowned Medical Research Council Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (VIDA). National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Innovation SARChI Chair in Vaccine Preventable Diseases. Co-Director of African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE).
• Professor Patrick Arbuthnot
  Patrick Arbuthnot is Personal Professor and Director of the Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa. After graduating with a medical degree from Wits, Patrick Arbuthnot completed a PhD in 1992. From 1993 to 1994, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Necker Hospital in Paris, and investigated the development of gene therapy for treating liver cancer and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. On returning to South Africa, Patrick Arbuthnot established the Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit. This unit is now a Centre of Excellence of the African Network for Drug and Diagnostic Innovation (ANDI)
• Professor Bavesh Kana 
  Director: Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research Research Associate: Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) Research Fellow: Stellenbosch University Consultant: South African Medical Research Council External Consultant: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Medical Research Institute (Boston, USA) Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), University of the Witwatersrand and the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS)
• Professor Yahya E. Choonara  
  Professor Yahya E. Choonara is currently Chair and Head of the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), Johannesburg, South Africa (SA). He is a Professor of Pharmaceutics, Head of Pharmaceutics and Director of the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform (WADDP) research unit and National Research Foundation (NRF) Chair in Pharmaceutical Biomaterials and Polymer-Engineered Drug Delivery Technologies.”
• Dr Kuben Naidoo  
  Dr Kubendran Naidoo studied biology at the University of the Witwatersrand, graduating with BSc and Honours degrees in 2001 and 2002. In 2003, Kubendran joined National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) as a medical scientist in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Haematology where he performed research on malaria and disorders of the red cell membrane. The unit became part of the Wits Research Institute for Malaria (WRIM). Kubendran completed his PhD in 2012 (membrane biogenesis and energy production of the malaria parasite). In 2017, he moved to the Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit (AGTRU) and continued research on the significance of pathogen-induced modifications to its host cell. In 2021, Kuben was appointed the tech transfer scientific team lead to explore the utility of a yeast protein expression cell line in the production therapeutic proteins and vaccines in South Africa, to prevent important infectious diseases.
• Professor Penelope Moore  
  
  • South African Research Chair of Virus-Host Dynamics and Reader
  • Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
  • Joint appointment as CAPRISA Honorary Senior Scientist in Virus-Host Dynamics at the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research (CAPRISA), University of Kwazulu-Natal
  • Adjunct Member at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town.