Biography

I completed my undergraduate and honours degree at the University of Pretoria in Microbiology and Medical Virology. I am currently completing my Master’s degree in Medical Virology. I currently form part of the Biosurveillance and Ecology of Emerging Zoonoses (BEEZ) in the Centre for Viral Zoonoses (UP-CVZ). My Master’s project has me based at the Special Viral Pathogens laboratory at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. My focus has been on the Arenavirus, Lassa virus, and has been mainly focused on protein expression and serological assay development.

Discipline/s

Microbiology, Medical Virology, Genetics, Biochemistry

Research description

My Master’s project is titled the “Development of a recombinant antigen-based Indirect Immunofluorescence assay for the diagnosis of Lassa fever”.

This project will aim to develop a recombinant-antigen based diagnostic assay for Lassa fever so that diagnosis can occur outside a biosafety level 4 laboratory. This assay will speed up diagnosis which could help prevent further spread of Lassa fever in endemic regions. The diagnostic assay will be developed using stable cell lines for both the Lassa virus nucleoprotein and glycoprotein.

This project links with One Health because it will lead to the development of a diagnostic assay that can be used in endemic regions which will speed up the diagnosis of Lassa fever. The developed stable cell lines could also be used further to develop other serological assay for Lassa virus or other Arenaviruses. The stable cell lines could also be used to further study the protein structures therefore improving our understanding of the virus proteins.

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