Professor Catherine Orrell
Affiliations
- Full Member, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine
- Desmond Tutu HIV Centre
HIV and other Infectious Diseases Research Unit (HIDRU), South African Medical Research Council.
Key Expertise
AIDS, Co-Infection, HIV, HIV Treatment
Main Research Focus
Catherine Orrell is an HIV Clinician and Clinical Pharmacologist , currently Unit Director of the HIV and other Infectious Diseases Research Unit (HIDRU) at the SAMRC. She is also an investigator at the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre and a Full Professor at the University of Cape Town. She has been PI on a range of HIV treatment and prevention efficacy, toxicity, over the past 25 years and is experienced in conducting research in both state-of-the-art research facilities; and in community settings. Her teams lead large-scale TB and HIV vaccine, prevention and treatment studies, in adults and children, across all phases of research (I to IV), including PK and drug-interaction studies, in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Most Significant Paper Authored in 2025
Oral antiretroviral adherence interventions in the era of U=U
Keene CM, Sabin LL, Jennings L, Schreuder C, Källström-Ståhlgren CO, Katz IT, Singh Y, Orrell C*, Amico KR* (2025)
(*shared senior author).
This invited narrative review synthesises two decades of adherence science in the context of U=U and contemporary ART, reframing adherence from a purely biomedical construct to a person-centred and implementation-focused challenge. As shared senior author, I led the conceptual framing and interpretation, positioning adherence research within modern treatment and prevention paradigms. Published in a leading international journal, this paper has high relevance for clinical practice, policy, and
future intervention design in high-burden settings.