The Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM), Faculty of Health Sciences, UCT, recently announced 5 Early-Career and 6 Postdoctoral fellowships have been awarded, for three years each, under the new Carnegie Corporation Developing Emerging Academic Leaders (DEAL) in Africa programme.

Professor Valerie Mizrahi, Director of the IDM, commented ‘This is a wonderful opportunity for the IDM to continue a programme which supports young academics towards an independent career in the infectious diseases arena, at UCT. We are very grateful to both UCT and the Carnegie Corporation for the funding and support”.

Awardees had to all be previous recipients of fellowships from the Carnegie Corporation Next Generation of Academics in Africa (NGAA) programme, run at UCT from 2011 to 2016 in the fields of civil engineering, economics and infectious diseases. The IDM were allocated a portion of the funds given to infectious diseases. The intention of the 2017 DEAL programme is to build on the NGAA programme, developing a cohort of emerging academics and providing support for those transitioning to independent academic scientist positions.

The IDM awardees are:

• Early-Career Fellowship awardees:
  • Dr Jennifer Claire Hoving (immunology), hosted by Professors Valerie Mizrahi & Gordon Brown (University of Aberdeen, leading the newly created AFGrica Mycology Unit based in the IDM)
  • Dr Mamadou Kaba (medical microbiology), hosted by Professor Mark Nicol
  • Dr Anastasia Koch (medical microbiology), hosted by A/Professors Digby Warner and Helen Cox
  • Dr Lindi Masson (medical virology and chemical systems), hosted by Professor Jonathan Blackburn
  • Dr Nashied Peton (medical microbiology), hosted by Professor Robert Wilkinson and Dr Anna Coussens
• Postdoctoral Fellowship awardees:
  • Dr Rubina Bunjun (medical virology), hosted by A/Professor Jo-Ann Passmore
  • Dr Matthew Darby (immunology), hosted by A/Professor William Horsnell
  • Dr Evelyn Lumngwena (chemical systems), hosted by Professors Ntobeko Ntusi (Department of Medicine) and Jonathan Blackburn
  • Dr Munyaradzi Musvosvi (immunology), hosted by A/Professor Tom Scriba
  • Dr Frederick Nindo (computational biology), hosted by Professor Mark Nicol and A/Professor Darren Martin
  • Dr Charles Omollo (medical microbiology), hosted by A/Professor Digby Warner

The availability of the IDM Fellowships was both internally and externally advertised, including distribution to previous awardees who had moved from UCT and to institutions that previously received Carnegie support under the NGAA programme, namely the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Ghana.