Eugene Dowdle Award PhD Presentations - 3rd session

23 May 2019
Phd students
23 May 2019

Today, 23 May 2019, the third round of PhD Presentations took place in the Wofson Pavilion. Four PhD candidates presented on their PhD projects while competing for the Eugene Dowdle Award with winners receiving 1st place R15,000, 2nd place R7,000 and 3rd place R3,500 cash prizes.

Melissa Murphy, Lerato Hlaka and Agano Kiravu

Agano Kiravu began the third round with a presentation entitled "Factors that impact T cell immunity in the first year of life". Agano's project asks whether a change in BCG (Bacillus Calmette–Guérin - the only available Tuberculosis vaccine) immunizing strain impacts BCG T cell immunity and whether a change in BCG immunizing strain impacts T cell immunity to other vaccines. He found that the BCG strain impacts T cell response to both homologous (BCG) and heterologous (other vaccines).

Lerato Hlaka presented next on "Minor groove binders as novel anti-TB drugs and the use of non-ionic surfactant vesicles as a delivery system". Lerato's aim of her PhD project is to identify potential novel drug targets for pathogen and host-directed therapy for tuberculosis (TB). Her objective may be reached by identifying the anti-mycobacterial activity of minor groove binder (MGB) compounds as novel anti-TB drugs and a foundation in the development of novel inhalable drug formulation for the treatment of TB.

Third to present was Alisha Chetty whose talk was entitled "Bystander effects of nematode exposure on subsequent herpesvirus infection". Alisha found that nematode infection induces canonical Th2 immunity in the uncolonized mouse female genital tract (FGT) and prior nematode exposure worsened subsequent vaginal Herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) infection, while worsened HSV-2 during co-infection was associated with FGT eosinophilia, elevated IL-33 and reduced IFN-γ compared to the virus-only control.

Melissa Murphy presented last with "BCG-induced infant NK and unconventional T cell responses to mycobacteria". Melissa's aim was to investigate BCG-induced monocyte, natural killer cells (NK), γδ T cells and mucosal associated invariant T cells (MAIT) responses. She found that vaccination with BCG was associated with induction of functional BCG-reactive NK and MAIT cells and that the analytes associated with trained immunity correlates with NK and MAIT cell responses in vaccinated infants only.

Last PhD Presentation Session

12:00 in the Wolfson Pavillion

6 June 2019 Presentations

  • Muchaneta Mugabe
  • Jermaine Khumalo
  • Khanyisile Kgoadi
  • Cheleka Mpande

Article by Bonamy Holtak