Prof Janet Mans

Email address: [email protected]

Prof Janet Mans obtained her BSc, BSc (Hons) and MSc degrees in Biochemistry at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. From 1999 to 2004 she was employed at the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (South Africa) and her research focused on fowl pox-based Newcastle disease virus vaccines. She performed her PhD research on the structure and function of mouse cytomegalovirus MHC-I homologs between 2004 and 2008 in the Molecular Biology Section of the Laboratory of Immunology (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, USA) under the supervision of Dr David Margulies and obtained her PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa in 2008. She then joined the Enteric Virus and Environmental Virology Group of Prof Maureen Taylor at the Department of Medical Virology, University of Pretoria as a postdoctoral fellow and established a norovirus research group. Since 2020 she heads the Enteric Virus and Environmental Virology group together with Dr Walda van Zyl.  She is currently an Associate Professor in Medical Virology.  Her research combines norovirus surveillance in both clinical and environmental settings to understand the molecular epidemiology and diversity of these viruses in South Africa.  She is a contributor to both Noronet and NoroSurv. 

ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6721-1177

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janet-mans-0448a127/

Dr Walda van Zyl

Email address: [email protected]

Walda van Zyl is jointly appointed as a senior lecturer and medical scientist in the Department of Medical Virology at the University of Pretoria and the National Health Laboratory Service. She holds a PhD in Haematology and Cell Biology from the University of the Free State. The research for her PhD entailed the construction, expression in E.coli and purification of an anticoagulant polypeptide. This was followed by evaluation of its in vivo and in vitro activity in a baboon model. She is registered with the Health Professions Counsel of South Africa as a medical scientist. She serves on the Faculty of Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee and teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her researched is focused on the surveillance and characterisation of enteric viruses in clinical and environmental settings. These viruses have a major impact on human health, causing significant morbidity and mortality in children younger than five years of age.

ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7344-7060

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/walda-van-zyl-a8972764/