Harriet Mayanja-Kizza

Harriet Mayanja-Kizza, a Professor of Medicine at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. She is a principal investigator on studies including tuberculosis (TB) immune diagnostics, clinical trials, and immune responses among TB contacts who present with latent TB resistor phenotypes. The immunodiagnostic studies aim at determining a significantly sensitive and specific immune biomarker towards triaging suspected TB patients, as a screening tool in public health settings. Studies also aim at determining surrogate markers for early TB disease, which would also be of benefit in TB vaccine studies towards a surrogate marker of disease, especially in the early pre-clinical stages. Other work includes studies related to the mechanism of resistance to Mycobacterial tuberculosis (Mtb) infection among contacts of close pulmonary TB patients, looking at blood and bronchial lavage samples. These studies would contribute towards better understanding the role of host factors in the risk of active TB disease or ability to control active disease in the face of exposure in high endemic countries.