Ilze Venter is an experienced Medical Scientist with an MSc degree in Medical Virology obtained from the University of Pretoria (UP). She started her career in molecular research at the Department of Medical Virology (UP) with a focus on waterborne enteric viruses and bacteria, especially hepatitis A virus, in raw, recreational and drinking water sources.
After joining the Sexually Transmitted Infections Section, part of the Centre for HIV & STIs (CHIVSTI), at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, she has accumulated extensive working experience in the field of STI research and surveillance. Currently, her main research interest is macrolide resistance and the molecular epidemiology of Treponema pallidum, the spirochete causing syphilis, in South Africa.
She is proficient in basic bacteriology, viral isolation in various cell cultures, ELISA, Immunofluorescence assays, Coxsackie B virus neutralisation assay, manual and automated total nucleic acid extractions, conventional RT-PCR and real-time PCR assays, probe hybridisation assays, HPV genotyping and analysis, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) assays, DNA sequencing and analysis. Venter is also actively involved in the training of laboratory professionals, daily quality assurance and adherence to the ISO15189 standard. She has published several manuscripts in peer reviewed journals and has co-authored several more publications. Her research has been presented at national and international conferences. She is passionate about imparting knowledge and providing accurate and quality research to help inform the public and private health sector.

Associate Professor Basil Brooke is the head of the Vector Control Reference Laboratory in the Centre for Emerging Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases located in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a member of the Wits Research Institute for Malaria (WRIM) at the University of the Witwatersrand.
His collaborative research work over the past 20-years has primarily focused on identifying the entomological drivers of malaria transmission, especially insecticide resistance, vector species assemblages and their corresponding behavioral/physiological traits. This work applies directly to the development of strategies designed to maintain effective malaria vector control in South Africa and the greater southern African region. Professor Brooke is also integrally involved in the assessment of enhanced vector surveillance techniques, operational procedures for malaria outbreak response, new vector control products and alternative methods of control. Many of these projects have involved postgraduate student participation at the BSc Hons, MSc and PhD levels. He is also the editor of the NICD’s quarterly journal, the Public Health Surveillance Bulletin.

Cheryl Cohen is a Professor in Epidemiology at the University of the Witwatersrand and head of the Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. She qualified as a medical doctor at the University of the Witwatersrand and is a Fellow of the College of Pathologists of South Africa in the discipline of Microbiology.
Cohen obtained an MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (United Kingdom) and a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand. In her current position she works closely with the South African Department of Health to generate evidence to guide policy with regard to the control and management of respiratory diseases. She led the establishment of a national surveillance programme for severe acute respiratory infections in South Africa in 2009 and is the epidemiology lead for national surveillance for pneumonia and invasive bacterial infections causing pneumonia. She heads up a team with an active research agenda in the field of respiratory diseases with a focus on the burden of disease and risk groups for severe illness, as well as assessment of the impact and effectiveness of interventions to reduce respiratory disease burden.

Prof Nelesh Govender is Head of the Centre for Healthcare-Associated Infections, Antimicrobial Resistance and Mycoses at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is a Professor in the School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, and is an Honorary Professor at both the University of Cape Town and University of Exeter. His research focuses on the epidemiology, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of life-threatening fungal diseases in vulnerable populations and he works towards gaining a better understanding of antifungal susceptibility and genetic relatedness of the fungal pathogens that cause these diseases.

Prof Lizette Koekemoer holds a honourary appointment at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, located in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is currently the co-director of the Wits Research Institute for Malaria, and a Research Professor and a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society in London. Prof Koekemoer is a member of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa, Health Professions Council of South Africa, Molecular and Cell Biology Group, and the South African Malaria Elimination Committee. She is also involved in several committees at the University of the Witwatersrand.
During her 26-years of research experience, Prof Koekemoer has lead multiple projects focusing on malaria vector systematics; insecticide resistance and the molecular mechanisms involved; and transmission-blocking strategies. She has supervised and co-supervised more than 65 students, hosted post-doctoral fellows and has successfully secured research grants from a wide variety of funders.

Nicola Page is a principal scientist, leading the Virology Division of the Centre for Enteric Diseases at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. She holds an extra-ordinary professor position within the Department of Medical Virology at the University of Pretoria, is a registered medical scientist (Virology) with the Health Professionals Council of South Africa (HPCSA) and has a C1 National Research Foundation (NRF) rating. She completed her undergraduate training at the University of Pretoria in 1995 (cum laude), following up with an Honours degree in 1997. She moved to the Medical University of South Africa, under the guidance of Prof Duncan Steele and competed an MSc(Med) in Medical Virology in 2001 and a PhD in 2005. She has also subsequently completed the SA-FETP training program (2014-2015) and obtained an MPH at the University of Pretoria, graduating cum laude in 2016. She is a member of several national and international professional associations and working groups.
She has authored or co-authored more than 60 refereed articles in scientific journals, worked on the WHO Manual of rotavirus detection and characterization and was a guest editor on the Journal of Infectious Diseases – Rotavirus in Africa supplement. She has presented numerous papers at national and international conferences and meetings and is a principal investigators on projects supported by national and international funding agencies. In addition, she has successfully supervised 1 BSc (Hons), 7 MSc, 3 MPH and 3 PhDs with 2 PhDs and 2 MSc projects currently in process. Her main research fields include diarrhoeal diseases, the development of molecular techniques for the detection and characterization of pathogens associated with diarrhoea, the monitoring of rotavirus vaccine effectiveness, molecular epidemiology of enteric viruses, evaluation of new enteric vaccine candidates, development of new data tools for studying the epidemiology of diarrhoea and the gut microbiome.

Prof Olga Perovic is currently lead for the Antimicrobial Resistance Laboratory and Culture Collection at the Centre for Healthcare-Associated Infections, Antimicrobial Resistance and Mycoses at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases located in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is an Associate Professor within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand and has been the Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for AMR in the AFRO region since 2017. Perovic in an honorary research fellow at the University of Kwazulu-Natal.
She is the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) lead in South Africa, principal investigator of national surveillance for antimicrobial resistance for nosocomial pathogens at GERMS-SA, is an expert in laboratory quality for resistance and antimicrobial susceptibility testing methods and their clinical applications; and finally teaches and trains undergraduate, postgraduate and other related learners.
Perovic is a member of Ministerial advisory Committee (MAC) for AMR, Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP), Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS), Advisory Group of Experts on In vitro Diagnostics (SAGE IVD) WHO, Advisory Group on Critically Important Antimicrobials (AG CIA) for Human Medicine and Chair of the National Advisory Committee for Antimicrobial at the South African Society of Clinical Microbiology (SASCM).

Prof Anthony Smith is currently employed as a Principal Medical Scientist at the Centre for Enteric Diseases (CED) at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, South Africa. Smith obtained his PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the University of the Witwatersrand and holds joint staff appointments with the University of Pretoria (Extraordinary Professor) and University of the Witwatersrand (Senior Research Officer).
Smith has a ‘C2’ rating with the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa; a rating category for established researchers with a sustained recent record of productivity in their field of study. CED is a reference centre in South Africa for human isolates of Salmonella species, Shigella species, Campylobacter species, Vibrio cholerae, Listeria monocytogenes and diarrhoeagenic Escherichia coli. He is the coordinator for PulseNet Africa and a member of the PulseNet International steering committee (PulseNet is a molecular subtyping network for global enteric disease surveillance).
His current activities include diagnosis, surveillance and epidemiology of enteric bacterial pathogens in South Africa. He lectures and teaches on the application of molecular techniques in the microbiology laboratory, including techniques related to laboratory identification and characterisation of bacterial enteric pathogens. These techniques include PCR, molecular subtyping of bacteria (PFGE, MLVA and MLST), whole-genome sequencing and metagenomics. Smith is also involved with supervision of post-graduate students and training of intern medical scientists. His supervision of post-graduate students includes six PhD students and 14 MSc students, and his publication record includes 96 peer-reviewed publications.

Prof Anne von Gottberg is currently the laboratory lead for the Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is furthermore an Associate Professor at the School of Pathology, Faculty of the Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand and Honorary Professor at the Department of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town.
Dr Von Gottberg leads a laboratory team responsible for reference diagnostics for respiratory and meningeal pathogens nationally and regionally. The laboratory is the regional reference laboratory for the World Health Organization (WHO) Vaccine-preventable Invasive Bacterial Diseases (VP-IBD) Coordinated Global Surveillance Network for the southern African region; a National Influenza Centre (NIC); and a WHO RSV and SARS-CoV-2 Reference Laboratory.
Her main interests include surveillance of meningitis and respiratory pathogens and assessing vaccine efficacy. She has authored and co-authored more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals, in addition to supervising a number of Masters and PhD students.
Dr Von Gottberg obtained her MBBCh and PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand, and trained for her specialisation in clinical microbiology (FC Path[SA] MICRO) at the National Health Laboratory Service (former South African Institute for Medical Research) and at the University of the Witwatersrand.