AESA PROGRAMMES

Thobakgale-Tshabalala Christina

Affiliateship: 2016 - 2020

Cohort 1

Country (Nationality)

South Africa

Discipline

Medical & Health Sciences

Bio

Thobakgale-Tshabalala is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the HIV Pathogenesis Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in South Africa. She received her PHD in immunology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and also trained as a postdoctoral fellow with the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard (USA). For the past few years, her research focused on understanding cellular and viral factors that influenced disease progression in HIV-infected infants and findings from this work yielded numerous important findings which had an impact in changing treatment guidelines for children worldwide. She has authored and co-authored 21 publications and presented her research at various local and international conferences.

She currently supervises seven postgraduate students and her research group contributes to science by understanding the innate immune responses and their impact to control HIV & TB infections.
Dr Thobakgale-Tshabalala is a Wellcome Trust Fellow in Public Health and Tropical Medicine; a member of the South African Academy of Science; a South African ambassador for a global project aimed at young girls to encourage uptake of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) subjects and has been recognised by the Ministry of Science and Technology for the Distinguished Young Women in Science award.