Thandeka Moyo
Dr Thandeka Moyo is a Zimbabwean scientist who works at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, South Africa, as a post-doctoral fellow, researching HIV vaccines and more recently, those for Covid-19. ‘It makes me sad that many of us are at a place in our lives where we can’t be in the country that we love so much’.[1]
Background
Thandeka Moyo was born and grew up in Zimbabwe. From the age of 15 years old, she knew she wanted to learn about infectious diseases, what caused them and how we could eradicate them. She had no idea how she was going to achieve this goal of hers except through single-mindedly studying science-related subjects and hoping for the best!
Education
She studied her way through the sciences in high school and successfully applied to Rhodes University in South Africa for an undergraduate degree. In her fourth year (Honours) she undertook a malaria-related project under the supervision of Prof. Heinrich Hoppe. This was the first year she felt she was contributing to scientific research, which not only affirmed her love for studying infectious diseases but also her desire to go further and study HIV.
This led her to the University of Cape Town where she obtained both an MSc and PhD in the laboratory of Dr Jeffrey Dorfman researching within an HIV vaccine-related field. Here, she finally got to work on virus she had wished to work on all these years! During her PhD, she had the opportunity to conduct a research visit to the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, in the laboratory of Prof. Jean-Philippe Julien. She went there to conduct a portion of her research, and that is where her love for structural biology began.[2]
Career
As a young woman growing up in Zimbabwe, her eyes had been privy to the evolution of HIV/AIDS in our country and region over the past three decades. She had not only witnessed the viral evolution (the way HIV is always changing and mutating), but also people’s perceptions toward this viral infection. Before she reached her teenage years in the 1990’s, she already knew there was a “terrible disease” that could not be named, and which was claiming the lives of people around her. When someone died and nobody freely offered the cause, everyone knew not to ask.
In the 2000’s, things began to change. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) was more widely available, and more and more HIV-positive people were living healthy lives. But still, the stigma continued. This raised her curiosity. What is this disease, what causes it, and why is there a stigma around it?
For her postdoctoral studies, she has continued in HIV research but with a sole focus on protein biochemistry and structural biology in the laboratory of Prof. Lynn Morris and Prof. Penny Moore at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in Johannesburg. It is here that she first heard about GCRF START.
As a GCRF START Postdoctoral Research Fellow, START gave her opportunities she could have never imagined. She now has access to a world-class synchrotron, the UK’s national synchrotron – Diamond Light Source, where she can send her HIV-antibody complexes to obtain the vital diffraction data she needs for her research – to date she has used beamlines i04, i04-1 and i03. She was given the opportunity to present at the START launch event in Oxford (UK) in March 2019, and subsequently at various START meetings, Institutes and Centres, such as CAPRISA, with whom she collaborates.
She mentored one MSc student and two medical scientists at the NICD. All three are intelligent women with bright futures in science. She said it has been a pleasure working with them towards their scientific goals. Mentoring has taught her a great deal about how to support other emerging scientists and has helped her learn to effectively juggle between working on her own project, while being present to ensure she assists them with theirs.
What Thandeka’s doing now on COVID-19 antibody research is typical of the way scientists are working together globally to find a vaccine. Fascinating bits of Thandeka’s research include looking at how HIV+ people cope with COVID-19, how the SA pandemic differs to those in the UK and US and whether people who have recovered from COVID have high enough antibodies to help make vaccines. Her lab collaborated with UK's Oxford University trials - the first one started in SA this week, testing some of the antibody responses of that vaccine. ‘You can’t do research without collaboration these days’. Talk about making a global difference in real time!. Thandeka did her PhD research at Toronto Sick Kids.[3]
Picture Gallery
References
- ↑ Hannah Mentz, [1], The Guardian, Published: 17 December, 2020, Accessed: 17 December, 2020
- ↑ [2], Synchrotron Techniques for African Research and Technology (START), Published: 24 August, 2020, Accessed: 17 December, 2020
- ↑ [3], UK in Zimbabwe, Published: 21 December, 2020, Accessed: 22 December, 2020
