Fellows
Tiza Nguni
DELTAS Africa I Fellowship Recipient
Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI), Durban, South Africa
Understanding CD8+ T cell-mediated HIV control (subtypes A and C) in eastern and southern Africa: emphasis on dominant networked epitopes and HLA class I alleles
Tiza Ng’uni obtained her PhD in cancer and antimicrobial research from the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. She later relocated to Durban to join AHRI, where her work is focused on investigating T cell immune responses to viral pathogens such as HIV and SARS-CoV-2 to better understand the mechanisms associated with the control of viral infections. She is currently the Vaccine Studies Group Lead and oversees projects focused on HIV and COVID-19 vaccine research. Ng’uni is also coordinating a human leukocyte antigen (HLA) project aimed at characterising HLA allele and haplotype frequencies in eastern and southern Africa. The data generated on HLA usage in the region will serve as an important resource for researchers developing new vaccines. Through her work, she hopes to contribute to the quest for an HIV vaccine.