IDM Seminar Program: CPD-Accredited

Wednesday, 19 August 2026 | 13:00 - 14:00
Wolfson Lecture Theatre, IDM Building

 

Host: Prof Digby Warner

Speakers

Dr Caron Jacobs
Caron Jacobs is a Wellcome Trust-funded cell biologist and imaging scientist in the IDM
Microscopy Platform. Caron obtained her PhD from University College London in 2018, where she used super-resolution imaging to study viral-cell infection processes, before returning to South Africa to pursue post-doctoral research. Supported by a Chan Zuckerberg Imaging Scientist fellowship forwork focusing on the democratization of bioimaging for infectious disease and biomedical research in Africa, Caron established the IDM Microscopy Platform in 2021.

This platform hosts and supports collaborative research and assay development in
advanced imaging for host-pathogen interactions. She also works with the Africa Microscopy Initiative, and the African BioImaging Consortium, which she co-founded with African researchers in 2021, to increase access to bioimaging resources, infrastructure and education across the continent.

 

Dr Mike Reiche
Dr Michael Reiche is an imaging scientist and facility manager of the Africa Microscopy Initiative (AMI), Department of Pathology & Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, UCT.

His efforts focus on advancing open-access microscopy infrastructure, capacity building, and implementing microscopy-based research that is relevant to Africa. Dr Reiche is a co-investigator of a recently awarded Wellcome Trust Bioimaging Technology Development programme, locally led by Dr Bianca Davidson (UCT Dept. of Medicine).

 

A/Prof Claire Hoving
A/Prof Claire Hoving is a basic immunologist whose research aims to understand host immune responses to disease with a particular focus on HIV-related opportunistic infections. Fungal infections are often an overlooked clinical and public health issue but cause significant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite their high prevalence, there are very few researchers dissecting the mechanisms of fungal infection in Africa, yet research in this field will provide new insights into protective immunity and may lead to improved treatments for immunocompromised patients. Claire’s group currently investigates the pathogenesis and host immune responses to:

  • Pneumocystis, a common cause of pneumonia and death in patients with advanced HIV disease.
  • Emergomyces africanus, a newly identified fungal pathogen in HIV patients and currently the most commonly diagnosed dimorphic fungal pathogen in these patients in South Africa.
  • Co-infection between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and opportunistic fungal pathogens.

 

A/Prof Rachael Dangarembizi
A/Prof Rachael Dangarembizi is in the Department of Human Biology and the Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cape Town, where she leads CryptoLab, Africa’s first dedicated laboratory investigating mechanisms of brain injury in fungal neuroinfections.
Her current research focuses on unravelling the neurobiological mechanisms driving brain injury during cryptococcal infection by integrating advanced imaging, multi-omics approaches, and experimental models of host-pathogen interactions. Rachael is deeply committed to strengthening capacity in neuroinfections research in Africa and globally, and to advancing a more equitable and representative scientific landscape.