Dr. Abhimanyu, CIDRI, awarded prestigious AXA fellowship
The AXA Research Fund, the research-funding branch of the global insurance brand, seeks to contribute to a greater understanding and prevention of risk worldwide, including environmental, life and socio-economic risk. Fellowships are one of the instruments through which they attempt to achieve this aim.
Dr. Abhimanyu has just recently joined the CIDRI, and presently holds an NRF postdoctoral fellowship. He is co-hosted by Professor Robert Wilkinson, Director of CIDRI, and Dr Anna Coussens, also of CIDRI and Senior Lecturer in the Division of Medical Microbiology, and his research focus is on 'Epigenetic biomarkers for tuberculosis'. Dr Abhimanyu was previously at the University of Johannesburg as a Claude Leon Foundation Fellow, and prior to that completed his PhD in Medical Microbiology from the University of Delhi, India.
Dr. Abhimanyu is the second person in the IDM to be granted an AXA fellowship. The first, Dr Nadia Chanzu from Kenya, will be investigating why HIV-positive pregnant women on antiretroviral therapy are at particular risk of pre-term births, while on a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at UCT hosted by Professor Clive Gray and Dr Heather Jaspan, both based within the Division of Immunology. Dr Chanzu is also the first African researcher at an African university to be awarded this fellowship.