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2018 Scientific Merit Awards

Silver Awards

Professor Penny Moore is an Honorary Senior Scientist at the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa - CAPRISA. She is also a Research Chair in Virus-Host Dynamics and Reader at WITS, and National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) of the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS). Professor’s Moore’s research over the past decade has provided a roadmap for the development of broadly neutralizing antibodies required for an HIV vaccine. She is internationally recognised for her research defining the immunological “arms race” that leads to such antibodies. Her research team showed, for the first time, how the evolving HIV swarm in infected donors plays a major role in the evolution of these broadly neutralizing antibodies. Moore’s research, focused in areas most impacted by the HIV epidemic, has thus significantly contributed to HIV the vaccine field. She is a founding member of the South African Young Academy of Science; an NRF B3 rated scientist; a full Member of the American Society for virology and a Member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa.

Professor Bavesh Kana is the Head of the Wits University node of the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research; an Associate Professor in the School of Pathology at the Wits Faculty of Health Sciences; Research Associate at CAPRISA and a Member of the BRICS TB Research Network. Professor Kana studies tuberculosis with a focus on identifying new drug targets and biomarkers to monitor treatment responses and risk of TB disease recurrence. His work attempts to address fundamental questions regarding pathogenesis and clinical manifestation of tuberculosis, with a specific emphasis on studying bacteria that are difficult to treat using antibiotics. He was awarded the CEO Titan Award for South Africa and the SADC Region and the African Continent; the WITS Enterprise Innovators Award. He was also appointed as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Early Career Scientist and selected as one of the Top 200 Young South Africans by the Mail and Guardian. Professor Kana has been admitted to the Academy of Science of South Africa.

Dr Nesri Padayatchi is an Epidemiologist and Deputy Director at the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa - CAPRISA, she is also an Honourable Lecturer at the School of Public Health at the University of KwaZulu Natal. She has more than 30 years clinical trial and research experience in the management of TB and related co-infections, with a special interest in Drug Resistant TB. Dr Padayatchi is the Principal Investigator and co-Principal Investigator of self-initiated TB-HIV clinical trials, and has published in this field in peer-reviewed journals. She is a TB activist and her vision is to reduce the suffering of patients with drug resistant TB. Dr Padayatchi served as the South African Principal Investigator for the Columbia University-Southern African Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Programme; the South African National and Provincial Advisory Boards for MDR –TB as well as the  International Union against TB and Lung Diseases Ethics Advisory Group. She sits on the Board of the South African HIV Clinicians Society and has been an ASSAf member since 2014. She is also advisor for the India TB Research Consortium. Dr Padayatchi has mentored over 100 undergraduate and post graduate students.

Professor Bronwyn Myers is a Chief specialist scientist in the Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drug Use Research Unit at the South African Medical Research Council.  She is also an Honorary Professor at Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at UCT. She is a clinical psychologist with an internationally competitive clinical research portfolio focused on developing, testing and implementing new interventions for substance use disorders and co-occurring mental and physical health problems in community and health settings. Her research aims to reduce the large treatment gap that exists in low-and-middle-income countries and to improve the quality of life for vulnerable, underserved populations. Professor Bronwyn Myers has successfully managed large grants and disseminated results in the form of academic publications and via translating research findings into practice and policy improvements. She has published more than 130 peer-reviewed journal articles; with an h-index of 24. Her research findings have led to minimum standards and clinical guidelines being developed for South African MNS services, MNS interventions being implemented in emergency services. Her expertise in mental health and substance use disorders services research has been acknowledged through invitations to participate in international reference groups on HIV and injecting drug use, WHO working groups on the strengthening of global substance abuse treatment services and the scientific advisory board for Harm Reduction International. Professor Bronwyn Myers is the recipient of International Congress of Psychology’s change fellowship for research with a social impact.

Award for Developing Capacity in Challenging circumstances
Professor Zodwa Dlamini is the current Deputy Vice-Chancellor of  Research, Innovation and Engagements at Mangosuthu University of Technology.  She is also a full Professor in Molecular Medicine and her specialty is on molecular oncogenomics. She is an academic executive with postdoctoral experience encompassing undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral teaching and supervision with extensive research experience spanning both historically advantaged and disadvantaged higher education institutions. She has a sustained international scientific standing, evidenced by sustained publications in international journals. Professor Dlamini is a distinguished Member of the Council of Scientific Advisers of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine a Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a Member of the Department of Higher Education and Training’s Research Outputs Main Evaluation Panel. Professor Dlamini’s research interest lie in understanding the molecular basis of HIV-related cancers and the discovery of molecular markers for precision prevention and targets for the development of new therapeutics. She served as Deputy Chairperson of the Board of the South African Medical Research Council.

Award for Developing Capacity in Challenging circumstances
Professor Eunice Seekoe is the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Fort Hare. She is Director of Albertina Sisulu Executive Leadership Programme in Health and the Vice Chairperson of South African FAIMER Regional Institution. She sits on the Editorial Board member of the Journal of Nursing Midwifery as well as University of Fort Hare Papers. Her research areas of expertise lie in Mentoring for Sustainable Rural Community Resilience; Mentoring and Leadership; Health Services Quality and Patients Satisfaction as well as Policy Evaluation. She was the founder of the Academic Leadership Development Academy in 2011; she won the Business Woman Association Achievers Award and received the University of Free State Chancellor’s Distinguished Award (cum laude category) in 2016.

Gold Awards

Professor Soraya Seedat  is Executive head at the Department of Psychiatry at Stellenbosch University and is a distinguished Professor of psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University. In her capacity as Research Chair in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, she manages the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Research Programme which includes of a large cohort of masters, PhD and postdoctoral students and clinical staff. Professor Seedat also manages a South African Medical Research Council Flagship Study - (SHARED ROOTS) as well as the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Epidemiological Research Study.  In addition, she co-directs the South African Medical Research Council’s Unit on Anxiety and Stress Disorders. She has received a number of accolades throughout her career, but in the last five years has been awarded with the Chancellor’s Award for Research by Stellenbosch University in 2017, the Vice-Rector’s Award for Researchers in 2016, an award for Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, also in 2016, the Rector’s Award for Outstanding Research in 2015 and the Distinguished Women in Science Award by the Department of Science and Technology in 2013.

Professor Anna-Lise Williamson holds a Research Chair in Vaccinology at the University of Cape Town. She is internationally recognised for her work in vaccinology and the development of new vaccines as well as for her research in the field of human papillomavirus – HPV. She lead the MRC funded programme that that got two locally developed HIV vaccines into clinical trials and continues to work on novel HIV vaccines. Professor Williamson’s present research is aimed at providing data to support HPV vaccine introduction in South Africa, as well as understanding the factors influencing infection and persistence of HPV. She has also developed a specific interest in the impact of HIV infection on HPV and has established her lab as an important world centre of expertise in the area. She was elected as a Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa  in 2004; Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa in 2005; and  a Fellow of the University of Cape Town in 2009. In 2010 Professor Williamson was awarded the Cancer Association of South Africa CANSA AG Oettlé Memorial Medal for work on HPV, a leading cause of cervical cancer.

Professor Gerhard Walzl is the Executive Head of the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the  Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University. Professor Walzl’s research focuses on the immunology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection and in particular host biomarkers, including diagnostic markers, markers of TB treatment response and markers of protective immunity against MTB.  He leads the Stellenbosch University Immunology Research Group, part of several international consortia and conducts recruitment of large cohorts of participants with well-characterized MTB infection and disease phenotypes to search for biomarkers of TB.  He is also Head of the Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics, Department of Biomedical Sciences at Stellenbosch University. Professor Walzl is Distinguished Professor at Stellenbosch University; Director at the National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Technology Center of Excellence for Biomedical Tuberculosis Research. He was bestowed the Rector’s Oustanding Research Award in 2009 and again in 2012 at Stellenbosch University.

Platinum Awards

Professor Maureen Coetzee is Medical entomologist in the field of malaria mosquito control. She is a Research Professor and DST/NRF Research Chair in Medical Entomology & Vector Control at the School of Pathology at Wits University.  She is a member of the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee of the Global Malaria Programme at the World Health Organization and member of the South African Malaria Elimination Committee at the National Department of Health. She is also the founder of the Wits Research Institute for Malaria at the School of Pathology at WITS University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. Her work over the years has gained her many accolades, including a Certificate of Distinction awarded by the Council for International Congresses of Entomology in 2016,  a  L’Oreal Award for “Distinguished Woman Scientist of the Year” in 2015, the Elsdon Dew Medal, bestowed by the  Parasitological Society of South Africa in 2014, the John Belkin Memorial Award by the American Mosquito Control Association in 2012 and the African Union Kwame Nkrumah Regional Woman Scientists Award in 2011. Professor Coetzee says that the training and mentoring of the next generation of medical entomologists is the only way to guarantee the ultimate aim of malaria eradication. To this end, she has trained and mentored a total of 63 post-graduates from 13 African countries in the last 25 years, 65% of whom are black and 44% are women. Many of her mentees have gone on to run their own research programmes and some work for the World Health Organization or various national malaria control programmes.

Professor Charles Feldman is a Specialist Physician and a Distinguished Professor of Pulmonology at WITS University. His research expertise are in the field of community-acquired pneumonia and in particular pneumococcal pneumonia. His research is translational and includes both clinical and basic research activity and is mainly undertaken as part of large multicentre, international  collaborations with international experts in the field of community-acquired pneumonia from all regions of the world. He is an NRF A-rated scientist who was recently elected as a Fellow of the American Thoracic Society, Member of the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2016 and elected as a Foundation Fellow of the European Respiratory Society in 2014. He also received the premier Vice Chancellors Research Award from WITS in 2009. Professor Feldman has sat on several review panels for the SAMRC and was appointed onto the SAMRC Board for two terms.

 

Special Award for Contribution to public health surveillance and research

Professor Lucille Blumberg is a Deputy Director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, of the National Health Laboratory Service, and is currently head of the Public Health Surveillance and Response Division. She is also medical consultant to the Emerging Pathogens Centre on rabies [rebies] and viral haemorrhagic fevers. She has received a number of accolades for her work including the Southern African Society for Veterinary Epi-demio-logy and Preventive Medicine Annual Epidemiology Prize for her contributions to society, the Paul Harris Award in 2014; the World Small Animal Veterinary Association One Health Award. She is registered as Specialist Medical Microbiologist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa; registered, through peer review, as a Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine of the Royal College of Medicine of Glasgow; and  she is also registered, through peer review, as an Infectious Diseases Specialist with the College of Medicine of South Africa.

2018 Scientific Merit Awards
2018 Scientific Merit Awards
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