Dr Ruan Marais joins CIDRI-Africa
Ruan joined the CIDRI-Africa team of Contributing Investigators in the second quarter of 2024. He is a clinician scientist and current Crick Africa Network Career Acceleration Fellow based in the Division of Medical Microbiology. His research is focused on the development of novel molecular techniques for infectious disease diagnostics and their translation to and integration with routine clinical care.
He developed the primary testing workflow used by Groote Schuur Hospital’s SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic service for much of the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ruan was also part of the team that first identified the Beta variant and later described the emergence of subsequent variants in South Africa. As part of this team, he worked on the development of infrastructure that links diagnostic and sequencing services.
In collaboration with the Division of Neurology, he developed a testing methodology and interpretative diagnostic algorithm for the detection of varicella-zoster virus reactivation in young stroke patients living with HIV. In the Division of Medical Microbiology, he performed the bioinformatic analysis and developed a local pipeline for a study of the molecular epidemiology of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales, implemented a routine reflex bacterial meningitis PCR, and initiated a project evaluating the implementation of clinical metagenomic sequencing to diagnose central nervous system infections.
Ruan received the Colin Kaplan award in 2020 for the development of the primary SARS-CoV-2 testing workflow at Groote Schuur. His Crick Africa Network: Career Acceleration Award (2024-2028) will support his work to evaluate the feasibility and utility of a clinical metagenomics diagnostic service in South Africa. This will facilitate the medium-term goal of sustainable implementation of this service as part of a diagnostic ecosystem that leverages automated tools to support diagnostic and antimicrobial stewardship programs.
Ruan received his MBChB from the University of Pretoria in 2014, his MSc from Imperial College London in 2017 and his MMed from UCT in 2022.