Immunologist of the Month

Every month we will feature a new interview with an Immunologist. These Immunologists are at the cutting-edge of research and education, they have kindly offered to give us their time and insight into their research and studies.

December 2020

Andreas Bergthaler studied veterinary medicine at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna and performed his graduate studies at the Institute of Experimental Immunology of the University/ETH Zurich. After a postdoctoral stint with Dr. Daniel Pinschewer at the University of Geneva, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Alan Aderem at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. In 2011 he became principal investigator at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria. He is also co-founder of the clinical-stage company Hookipa Pharma (Nasdaq: Hook).

The immunopaedia ambassador, Maria-Bernadette Madel, was fortunate to interview Andreas Bergthaler. In the interview he discusses factors that contributed to his transition from veterinary medicine to immunology, and the current immunology research his research group conducts.

Watch: Andreas Bergthaler Interview

November 2020

Prof Caroline T Tiemessen is the head of the Cell Biology laboratory within the Centre for HIV and STIs at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD). She is a research Professor in Virology and DSI/NRF Chair of HIV Vaccine Translational Research, University of the Witwatersrand. Prof Tiemessen studies HIV vaccines and HIV cure in paediatric and adult patients, with a major focus on natural resistance models for identifying and understanding correlates of protection. These include maternal-infant HIV-1 transmission and adult transmission models for studying protective immunity to HIV-1, as well as long term non-progressors and elite controllers to understand natural attenuation of disease progression. Post-treatment controllers provide another important model for the study of what constitutes HIV remission. Dana Savulescu, who is an Immunopaedia ambassador, was fortunate to interview Prof Tiemessen where she discussed why she became an immunologist, her achievements and contribution to HIV immunology.

October 2020

Our October Immunologist of the month is Dr Zaza Ndhlovu, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI). He also holds academic posts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT & Harvard, and a Howards Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Research Scholar. Dr Ndhlovu completed his PhD at Johns Hopkins and Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Harvard University. He is an HIV-cellular immunologist with a special focus on HIV-specific CD8+ T cell immunology. Immunopaedia was fortunate to interview Dr Ndhlovu where he discussed his journey to becoming an independent researcher, his research focus and gave advice to future immunologists.

Watch: A/Prof Ndhlovu Interview

August 2020

Our August Immunologist of the month is Dr Jude Uzonna a Professor of Immunology at the Department of Immunology, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Canada. He is currently the Associate Dean (Research) at the Max Rady College of Medicine. His research focuses on cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate immunity to infectious diseases, particularly those caused by protozoan parasites. Watch our 4 part interview of Prof. Uzonna that discusses his own research on trypanosomiasis, future of research in Africa and advice for future scientist

Watch: Prof Uzonna Interview

July 2020

Our July Immunologist of the month is Dr Heena Ranchod based at the Centre for Vaccines and Immunology, National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, South Africa. Dr Ranchod completed her BSc at the University of the Witwatersrand, and pursued both completed her post-graduate training at University of Pretoria. Her research focus is on TB immunology. She initially began her research career focusing on antibodies and, has now moved to the field of TB-host immuno-metabolism.

February 2020

Our February Immunologist of the month is Prof. Magez, a Belgian Professor of immunology, who focuses on parasite-immunology. He currently leads his research teams based at the Ghent University Global Campus in Incheon, South Korea and the Free University of Brussel, Belgium. For the past 30 years he has conducted research on the immunology of Trypanosomiasis. Here, he shares his experience and passion with young immunologists.

Read more: Prof. Magez Interview