Mieke van der Mescht obtained a BScHons degree in Haematology and an MSc in Medical Immunology from the University of Pretoria. She has been part of the HIV Immunopathology group led by Prof Theresa Rossouw since 2018.The focus of her PhD thesis in Medical Immunology was to determine and compare the immunological profiles and clinical outcomes by means of flow cytometric and cytokine analysis of both people living with HIV and HIV-uninfected patients admitted with COVID-19 to hospital in Tshwane.
Helen Carolyn Steel has worked in Immunology as a Medical Scientist at the University of Pretoria for over 30 years. At present, her research is focused on the persistent immune activation and inflammation associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. She has been involved in investigating the association between smoking, immune activation, and oxidative stress in relation to the emergence of HIV-1 drug resistance, viral persistence, and size of the reservoir. As many HIV patients suffer from non AIDS defining conditions such as cardiovascular disease, her study interests have extended to investigate the effect of antiretroviral treatment on systemic biomarkers of platelet activation. In 2020, she was awarded the position of Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Immunology. In addition to her responsibilities in lecturing undergraduate students and training and supervising postgraduate students, she also sits on the Editorial Board for Mediators of Inflammation and Frontiers in Immunology.
Theresa Marie Rossouw is a professor in the Department of Immunology at the University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery (MBChB) cum laude from Stellenbosch University (SU). She then completed two Masters’ degrees, both cum laude (Master’s in Philosophy—Biomedical Ethics—SU, and Master’s in Public Health—UP) and two doctoral degrees (PhD Philosophy, SU, and PhD Immunology, UP). She worked as the Clinical Head of the HIV clinic at Pretoria Academic Hospital from 2005 and then as an HIV consultant for the Tshwane district in 2014, after which she transitioned into research as Head of the Immunopathology Laboratory in the Department of Medical Immunology at UP in 2016. She mainly works in the field of HIV where she is specifically interested in HIV-associated drug resistance and systemic immune activation as well as the impact of COVID-19 on people with immunodeficiency. She is a member of the World Health Organization’s Research and Innovation Working Group, HIVResNet, and various scientific committees, and she is the current president of the South African Immunology Society. She is the co-chairperson of the Research Ethics Committee (REC) of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Pretoria and the immediate past chairperson of the REC of the Human Sciences Research Council. She is an NRF-rated scientist and was a finalist for the 2022 National Science and Technology Forum Researcher Award.
