Annual Fogarty Health Sciences Students’ Symposium for 2022

20 Jan 2023
20 Jan 2023

Our Fogarty Program held its annual Health Sciences Students’ Symposium on Tuesday 18th October 2022. This was held in the Neuroscience Institute Auditorium at Groote Schuur Hospital.

This year the symposium was jointly organized by the Health Sciences’ Students Africa Research Society (previously Clinician Scientists’ Society). The student president, Yanelisa Pulani, assisted in the planning and on the day, vice president, Waheed Amanjee, introduced the African Research Society alongside Graeme Meintjes, Principal Investigator of the HIV-associated TB Training Program.

The Symposium was attended by 25 Health Sciences’ students, the HATTP Administrative Committee members and 6 of our Fogarty Fellows, 2 of whom presented their research:

  1. Ms Zinhle Cindi on “Pharmacogenomics and pharmacokinetics of dolutegravir and tenofovir in HIV-positive Southern Africans” via Zoom.
  2. Dr Linda Boloko on “Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra in Blood”

Other speakers included:

  1. Professor Dick Chaisson, HATTP co-ordinating committee member from Johns Hopkins University in the US, on “Making a Mark in Clinical Research” via Zoom.
  2. Professor Mpiko Ntsekhe, head of the Division of Cardiology at UCT on “Tuberculous Pericarditis-Insights from the IMPI program” and
  3. Professor Gary Maartens from the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at UCT on “Translating HIV/TB research findings into policy”.

We were fortunate to have presentations from 3 Health Sciences students who had completed their research electives through our Fogarty program.

  1. Imraan Majiet presented on his elective in Allergy and Immunology in 2020, including his involvement in COVID-19 activities (Associate Professor Jonny Peter’s group)
  2. Ella Wesselink presented on her elective in CIDRI-Africa in 2022, working on the NEW STRAT TB clinical trial (Professor Graeme Meintjes’ group)
  3. Tebogo Malope presented her experiences of her elective in Allergy and Immunology in 2022, working on the IMARI study (Associate Professor Jonny Peter’s group)

We were pleased to organize and host this symposium with the African Research Society. This enabled us to promote the HIV-associated TB Training Program to a wide audience of future potential clinical researchers. There was positive feedback from the students and we hope to host more elective students in the year ahead.