Dr Virginie Rozot

Division of Immunology

Dr Virginie Rozot, Senior Research Officer

Senior Research Officer, South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative, Division of Immunology, Department of Pathology; Associate Member, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine; Principal Investigator and member of the Steering Committee, Wellcome Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Africa (CIDRI-Africa).

Virginie Rozot is an infectious disease clinical immunologist with major research interests directed towards understanding the immuno-pathology of tuberculosis to identify immune correlates of risk and protection against TB using high dimensional tools. She developed and is supervising the Mass cytometry platform of the Institute.

Virginie is particularly interested at understanding the immuno-pathology of TB in human tissues and through a grant awarded by the Wellcome Leap, is leading a project aiming at understanding the role of lymph nodes in the containment or spread of TB disease using an arsenal of state-of-the-art immunology, microscopy and microbiology approaches in post-mortem tissues. Ultimately,  the results of this study will have direct relevance to TB vaccine design and vaccination strategies.

SATVI is a world leader in TB vaccine clinical research with the mission to develop new and effective vaccination strategies against tuberculosis (TB) by testing multiple new vaccine candidates in clinical trials; SATVI’s projects address critical clinical, epidemiological, immunological and human genetic questions in TB vaccine development within an academic context, including the training of postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows. 

Virginie has been the lead immunologist on two safety and immunogenicity, dose-escalation trials of the live-attenuated vaccine, MTBVAC, one in adults and one in newborns and is the senior immunologist of a large, multisite Phase 3 MTBVAC trial aiming at evaluating the efficacy of MTBVAC over BCG in approximately 7000 newborns across six African sites with an expected trial length of 7 years.

Key area of expertise: Immunology, clinical research, tuberculosis, tissue immunology, mass cytometry, vaccines.


Selected publications:

See publications and profile on National Library of Medicine.


Contact details:

South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative, 
University of Cape Town
Room S2.01, Wernher and Beit Building, Anzio Road, Observatory 7925, South Africa

Email: virginie.rozot@uct.ac.za 

www.satvi.uct.ac.za 


Collaborations:

International:
Dereck Tait, IAVI, USA
Ingrid Murillo, Biofabri, Spain
Eugenia Puentes, Biofabri, Spain
W. Henry Boom, Case Western Reserve University, Uganda
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn, La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, USA
Alex Sette, La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, USA
Mario Roederer, NIH, USA
Marit Holleman, Tuberculosis Vaccine Inititative, The Netherlands
Sarah Fortune, Harvard University, USA
Carlos Martin, University of Zaragoza, Spain
Nacho Aguilo, University of Zaragoza, Spain
Chetan Seshadri, Washington University, USA
Joanne Flynn, Pittsburgh University, USA
Denise Kirschner, University of Michigan Medical School, USA
Bernard Fritzell, Tuberculosis Vaccine Inititative, France
Rajat Mukherjee, Alira Health, Spain
Jonathan Hoffmann, Fondation Merieux, France
Ann Ginsberg, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USA
Ajit Lalvani, Imperial College London, UK
Gilles Riveau, EPLS, Senegal
Niaina Rakotosamimanana, Institut Pasteur de Madagascar, Madagascar
Nima Aghaeepour, Stanford University, USA
Josh Titlow, Wellcome Leap, USA
Jason Swedlow, Wellcome Leap, Program director, UK
Stephen Cose, MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit
Alex Shalek, Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, USA

Local:
Ben Loos, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Digby Warner, Unviersity of Cape Town, South Africa
Alastair Leslie, African Health Research Institute, South Africa
Adrie Steyn, African Health Research Institute, South Africa
Threnesan Naidoo, African Health Research Institute, South Africa