Dr Camille Castelyn

Postdoctoral Fellow

Collaboration Panel Discussion Chair

DR r Camille Castelyn is an experienced professional with expertise in health ethics (PhD, CPA Bioethics, PGDip, MDiv, BTh) and empirical research including qualitative research. Her research focus is the increasingly complex ethical dimensions of genomic research as per her PhD, “A qualitative study of the values that underpin anticipated human reproductive cloning and enhancement through gene editing.” Applying a Values-based approach allows her to account for both shared and diverse values. She is experienced in serving on clinical ethics committees, research ethics committees and data access committees. Her professional knowledge development of genetic counselling, palliative care, public health, technology, earth ethics and religion, enables her to lead discussions on broad ethical and practical dimensions from an informed perspective. Currently, she is jointly affiliated with the Centre for Ethics and Philosophy of Health Sciences and a post-doctoral fellow at the Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, working to transform leadership in healthcare in Africa.

Ms Jeanne Van Rensburg

ICMM Project Manager 

Panelist

Jeanne Van Rensburg has had the privilege of serving as the project manager for a national study investigating birth asphyxia, known simply as the ‘NESHIE study’, since July 2017. With study aims that investigate various aspects of neonatal encephalopathy with suspected hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (NESHIE; brain injury in newborns due to a lack of oxygen and blood flow), Jeanne has been involved in extensive local collaborations with individuals representing four academic institutions, seven tertiary-level (public) hospitals, and three public and three private-sector service providers. Abroad, further collaborations have been sustained with colleagues collectively representing five entities spanning the academic and service provider industries. These collaborations, made possible through funding from the South African Medical Research Council (local source) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (international source), have been directly responsible for the local employment of 15 individuals and cross-sector interactions involving more than 80 individuals with skills and expertise largely in the clinical and ‘omic’ molecular fields. Collectively, this has resulted in the generation of preliminary data currently undergoing validation that is contributing positively towards the study’s ongoing aims of clinical characterisation, molecular and imaging biomarker identification, and genetic susceptibility and outcome associations analyses in moderate-severe NESHIE cases.

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Dr Helen Roos

Public Health Medicine Specialist and Lecturer

Panelist

Dr. Heleen Roos is a Public Health Medicine Specialist and lecturer at the School of Health Systems and Public Health, University of Pretoria (UP). With over 20 years of clinical experience both in South Africa and internationally, Dr. Roos has dedicated the past decade to focusing on Occupational Health, Public Health Medicine, and Health Professions Education.Currently, Dr. Roos manages the Public Health academic program for undergraduate medical students and is actively involved in the development of the new MBChB curriculum at the University of Pretoria.Dr. Roos's research interests encompass One Health and Health Professions Education, underscoring the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in addressing complex health issues. In collaboration with the faculty of veterinary science and health sciences, she was part of the team to developed a transdisciplinary One Health module. This module, tailored for undergraduate veterinary and medical students, highlights the interplay between human, animal, and environmental health, fostering a holistic understanding of health

Dr Louisa B Seopela 

Obstetrician and Gynaecologist/Lecturer

Panelist

Dr Louisa B Seopela is an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist working as a consultant at Kalafong Provincial Tertiary hospital and a lecturer at the University of Pretoria. She subspecialised in Maternal and Fetal Medicine. She is a member of the UP Academic Advisory Committee and the UP/SAMRC, Research Centre for Maternal, Fetal, Newborn and Child Care Strategies. She enjoys teaching and nurturing students. She is committed to the training and development of doctors, and she supervises registrars’ research. She is passionate about improving maternal and fetal health, and is currently involved in implementation research and rollout of continuous wave Doppler ultrasound Umbiflow TM to reduce stillbirths at primary health care level.

Dr Rahaba M Marima

PACRI Senior Scientific Researcher

Panelist

Dr Rahaba M Marima is a translational cancer researcher, an NRF-Y rated Senior Scientist at the Pan African Cancer Research Institute (PACRI), University of Pretoria (UP).she leads her research in prostate cancer disparities and HIV-associated cervical cancer. she  also supervise and co-supervise postgraduate students within PACRI which include basic scientists and clinician/scientists. Her research interests include decrypting mechanisms in the HIV-cancer relationship as well as the intrinsic and extrinsic factors driving cancer health disparities. she completed her PhD in 2017 at the University of the Witwatersrand, on the effects of the Highly Active Antiretroviral Treatment (HAART) components on lung cancer. she's held various academic positions, from Junior Lecturer, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, to Senior Scientific Researcher. she is  a member of local and international bodies such as the South African Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SASBMB), Southern African Society for Human Genetics (SASHG), Golden-Key International (GKI) Honour Society, American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB), African Organization of Research and Training in cancer (AORTIC), The Scientific Research Honour Society and American Association of Cancer Research (AACR). she is a South African awardee of the 2021 AACR Global Scholar In Training Award (GSITA). she  also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education and Training (PGDipHET), keeping in touch with the evolving HET trends. she is a regular reviewer of leading oncology journals and have authored 27 publications. Understanding unique populations’ genomes and how these lead to cancer disparities is key to her research.

Dr Ross Anderson

Lecturer

Panelist 

Dr Ross is a Senior Lecturer within the Department of Physiology, and undertake research within the Centre for Neuroendocrinology.  In His career to date he has  had the opportunity to work in a number of different research environments and on a variety of research topics within the fields of cellular physiology and molecular biology, including endocrine signalling/pharmacology, oncology, gene expression,and regulation of transcription/translation. His MSc(Res) and PhD projects at the University of Edinburgh, and subsequent postdoctoral research at the Universities of Cape Town and Pretoria, have been heavily grounded in the fields of molecular biology, biochemistry, and cell signalling.  Much of his present research is inter-disciplinary and has involved interaction and collaboration with biochemists,molecular biologists, pharmacologists and medicinal chemists.His  research focus relates to the identification of novel hypothalamic G protein-coupled receptors that regulate the reproductive axis in humans, and the development of novel therapeutics targeting this axis.  With global fertility rates dropping, and more couples resorting to IVF methodologies for conception,understanding how the reproductive axis is regulated is of vital importance, with research generated in this field having scientific and clinical value, both nationally and internationally.  His  research group has established a number of important collaborations which are yielding valuable and interesting data, and includes researchers from within South Africa, as well as the USA, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK.