Page 61 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID

A Widening Idea of Health: The SAMRC from Creation to Covid

Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, the MRC’s fourth president, with the Minister of Health,
Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, at the celebration of the MRC’s thirtieth anniversary, 11
November 1999.

direction owed much to his personal attributes – certainly he consulted others,
but ultimately he was his own man with his hand alone on the tiller, who, as an
accomplished immunological researcher, combined a passion for research with a zeal
for institutional change. His eyes ‘lit up when he talked about science’, observed a
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visiting scientist, while an MRC insider characterized him as ‘a big thinker, big on
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science, big on ideas’. However, fulfilling his mission was made easier by the fact
that the door to reform at the MRC was by then more than half open. ‘Change was
already under way at the MRC under Prozesky’, he acknowledged. ‘My task was to
take it forward, though not in a reckless way.’
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Working closely with Prozesky (who had had his eye on him for some time as a
possible successor ) and with UCT paediatrician Marian Jacobs who became the new
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chairperson of the Board in 1998, Makgoba made stabilizing and then growing the

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