Professor Virna Leaner is a Biomedical Researcher in the Division of Medical Biochemistry and Structural Biology, Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa. She obtained her PhD in Medical Biochemistry at the University of Cape Town and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, with research focus on identifying altered gene expression patterns and transcriptional regulatory mechanisms associated with the development of gynaecologic cancers. 

She returned to the University of Cape Town in 2004 to develop an independent research program in the Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences focused on genomic and proteomic approaches to identify cancer biomarkers and therapeutic targets using cervical cancer and other cancers as disease models. She directs a laboratory with expertise in molecular biology and cancer cell biology. Her research group identified novel genes that are required for the growth and survival of cancer cells, some for which targeted therapies are currently under investigation.