Member Groups

Three multi-investigator groups that operate principally in the TB/HIV space: 

• The South African TB Vaccine Initiative (SATVI), which includes Mark Hatherill (Director), Tom Scriba (Deputy Director), Elisa Nemes, Virginie Rozot, Munyaradzi Musvosvi, and Simon Mendelsohn.
• The Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Africa (CIDRI-Africa) which includes Robert Wilkinson (Director), Graeme Meintjes, Helen Cox, Suraj Parihar, Muki Shey, Sean Wasserman and Charlotte Schutz.
• The Desmond Tutu HIV Centre (DTHC), which includes Robin Wood (Director), Linda-Gail Bekker (Deputy Director), Catherine Orrell, Keren Middelkoop and Katherine Gill.

Three extramural units of the SAMRC directed by IDM Members: 

• Drug Discovery and Development Unit (H3D) which includes Kelly Chibale (Director), Kathryn Wicht and John Woodland.
• Precision and Genomic Medicine Research Unit (PGM) which includes Raj Ramesar (Director) and Nyarai Soko.
• Platform for Pharmacogenomics Research and Translation Research Unit  which inculdes Collet Dandara (Director) and Oluwafemi Oluwole.

Two SAMRC Collaborating Centres on TB or HIV research, with collaborators based in other UCT departments or South African institutions:

• Clinical and Community HIV-Tuberculosis Research Collaborating Centre headed by Graeme Meintjes, together with Keren Middelkoop, Linda-Gail Bekker, Robert Wilkinson and Robin Wood, and collaborators Gary Maartens and Tom Scriba. Walter Sisulu University, represented by Andy Parrish from the Department of Internal Medicine.
• Centre for Tuberculosis Biomarker-Targeted Intervention led by Mark Hatherill with Tom Scriba, Robert Wilkinson, Robin Wood and Mark Nicol, and Rod Dawson (UCT); Gerhard Walzl from Stellenbosch University; Alan Christoffels from UWC; Danie Theron Brewelskloof, TB Hospital; and Clifton Barry III from the NIAID as collaborators.

Other research entities:

• UCT Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit (Valerie Mizrahi, Digby Warner, Sophia Gessner, and Anastasia Koch).
• UCT node of the DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research (Valerie Mizrahi and Digby Warner).
• AFRICA Center for Medical Mycology (CMM) tackling fungal infections (partnership between Gordon Brown, University of Exeter, and Claire Hoving).
• Computational Biology Group (Nicola Mulder [Director], Darren Martin and Musalula Sinkala).
• UCT Biopharming Research Unit (Ed Rybicki, based in the Science Faculty).
• Vaccines for Africa (Gregory Hussey).
• Medical Biotechnology and Immunotherapy Research Unit (MB&I) (Stefan Barth).

Five Research Chairs awarded under the National Research Foundation's South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI): 

• Cancer Biotechnology (Stefan Barth).
• Applied Proteomics and Chemical Biology (Jonathan Blackburn). 
• Drug Discovery (Kelly Chibale, based principally in the Department of Chemistry). 
• Poverty-related Infections (Graeme Meintjes).
• Vaccinology (Anna-Lise Williamson).

Further areas of research expertise include: 

• SARS-CoV-2 (Wendy Burgers, Catherine Riou and Ruby Bunjun).
• HIV pathogenesis, HIV-TB Immunology, HIV/AIDS paediatrics and HIV & steroid receptors (Carolyn Williamson, Melissa-Rose Abrahams, Muazzam Jacobs, Michael Zulu and Janet Hapgood).
• HIV/HPV mucosal immunology, Microbiome, Female genital tract infection (Heather Jaspan, Jo-Ann Passmore, Lindi Masson, Anna Happel and Tanko Fatime Ramla).
• Microbiome of respiratory and skin infections (Felix Dube)
• Vaccine development (Anna-Lise Williamson and Sonwabile Dzanibe)
• International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) (Frank Brombacher and Reto Guler).
• Parasitic and helminthic infections (William Horsnell).
• Protein biochemistry and angiotensin-converting enzymes (Ed Sturrock).
• Cellular neurophysiology and computational neuroscience (Joseph Raimondo).
• Receptor biology (Arieh Katz and Bob Millar).
• Mass spectrometry and proteomics applications (Tariq Ganief).
• Prevalent cancers (Katherine Antel and Pauline van der Watt).