Dr Sealelo Tshilwane

Senior Lecturer: Parasitology and Immunology

BSc, BSc Hons. Biochemistrya (UL), MSc Biochemistry, PhD Veterinary Tropical Diseases (UP)

Office
Room 2-12
Paraclinical Building

Biography

Selaelo Ivy Tshilwane is a senior lecturer in the Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases. She completed a BSc and BSc Hons in Biochemistry at University of Limpopo. Following this, she obtained an MSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Veterinary Tropical Diseases both from the University of Pretoria. After obtaining her PhD in 2010, she was appointed as a researcher at ARC-Onderstepoort Veterinary Research (ARC-OVR). During that time, she was involved in research on host immune responses and vaccine development for vector borne diseases including heartwater and African horse sickness. She contributed substantially to the development of a protective prototype multi-epitope DNA vaccine for heartwater with one patent being filled on this work. In 2019 she was appointed as a lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in the School of Life Sciences, where she lectured Immunology and Parasitology. Her main research interests are Immunology focusing mainly on host immune responses to vaccines, parasitic and vector-borne diseases; as well as vaccines development for these diseases. Recently she expanded her research to neglected parasitic zoonoses as well as host immune responses to parasitic co-infections and co-morbidity with non-communicable diseases.

Professional and academic experience

11 years experience as researcher
2 years experience as lecturer

Professional memberships

Member of the South African Immunology Society
Member of the International Veterinary Vaccinology Network (IVVN)

Subjects taught at undergraduate and postgraduate levels

Veterinary Immunology
Veterinary Parasitology

Research interests

Host immune responses to parasitic and vector-borne diseases
Host immune responses to parasitic co-infections and co-morbidities
Parasitic zoonoses
Immunoinformatics
Vaccine development

Collaboration

University of KwaZulu-Natal
ARC-OVR
Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine

Postgraduate Students

Name of student	Degree	Project title	Supervion status	Institution
Ms Erika Faber	PhD	Transcriptome analysis of immune responses induced in horse peripheral blood mononuclear cells by attenuated and virulent African horse sickness virus serotype 4 and its recombinant proteins	Co-supervisor	UP
Ms Ekuyikeno Silas	PhD	Immune evaluation of co-morbidities during type 2 diabetes and Trichinella zimbabweanses infection	Co-supervisor	UKZN
Ms Zoxolo Mdluli	PhD	Type two diabetes mellitus and Plasmodium berghei malaria co-morbidity in Sprague-Dawley rats	Co-supervisor	UKZN
Ms Leah Maharaj	PhD	Evaluation of variant surface antigens to inform malaria vaccine design	Co-supervisor	UKZN
Ms Thabile Madlala	PhD	Immunoinformatic analysis, genetic and antigenic diversity of Toxoplasma gondii in livestock species in KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa	Co-supervisor	UKZN
Ms Cara Van der Byl	BSc.Hons	In silico vaccine design of a multi-epitope vaccine for Haemonchus contortus using peptidases as targets	Supervisor	UKZN
Ms Xolile Ntshaba	BSc.Hons	Immunoinformatics approach to designing a multi-epitope vaccine against Nipah virus	Supervisor	UKZN

Research output/publications

10 publications in peer-reviewed or refereed journals
4 congress proceedings

Patents

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