Biography

Marike is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Biosurveillance and Ecology of Emerging Zoonoses group at the Center for Viral Zoonoses since June 2018. Marike published the first reports of bat coronaviruses from South African bats in 2013 and the first virome metagenomics study in bats from South Africa identifying several novel viruses. Her research interests cover multiple molecular diagnostic techniques to detect novel agents and diverse potential zoonotic viral agents (coronaviruses, herpesviruses, adenoviruses, reoviruses, and influenza A viruses). She also has a keen interest in bioinformatics and next-generation sequencing technologies and wishes to expand her research group’s expertise in this regard.

Discipline/s

Microbiology; Virology; Zoonoses

Research description

Current research involves coronavirus biosurveillance - investigating viral diversity and maintenance of coronaviruses in bat populations. The aim is to expand the research to potential spillover hosts such as livestock, other wild animals near bat roosts, and humans). For the last year, Marike has been focusing on a large bat population of Egyptian rousette bats in Limpopo and how host reproductive stages and seasonality may be involved in maintaining coronaviruses. The research involves expertise in the project's virological aspects, knowledge of the biology of the bats (zoology), and both bioinformatics and statistical data analyses for data interpretation. The idea is to identify times of higher risk to people and other animals in the region in becoming infected with bat coronaviruses when there is increased coronavirus shedding into the environment. We can implement actions to prevent human/livestock interactions with bats at these times of higher risk to reduce opportunities for new viruses to jump across species.

Orchid ID

Research gate