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Lung Infection and Immunity Unit

Keertan Dheda is Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Head of the Lung Infection and Immunity Unit embedded within at the UCT Lung Institute and the Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town, and also an associate member at the IIDMM, UCT. He is an attending Consultant General Physician and Pulmonologist at Groote Schuur Hospital and UCT Private Academic Hospital in Observatory in Cape Town. He also holds a South African Department of Science and Technology - National Research Foundation Chair in Lung Infection and Immunity and is a Fellow of the University of Cape Town. He completed his PhD in Mycobacterial Immunity at UCL where he holds a Faculty and Honorary Consultant position in the Department of Infection. He was the recipient of the 2010 International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Scientific Award in 2010 for his outstanding contribution to the field of TB and lung disease. The Lung Infection and Immunity Unit is an WHO-associated ANDI Center for Diagnostic Excellence. The groups main research interests are the study of pulmonary regulatory immunological pathways in relation to infection, development and validation of rapid and field-friendly diagnostics for pulmonary infections, and outcome and intervention studies of drug-resistant tuberculosis. This work, including several international multi centric studies (TB-NEAT, TBsusgent, HIV-longitudinal), is funded by the MRC, SA NRF, EU (FP7), EDCTP, NIH and other charities.

First prize: The Lung Infection and Immunity Unit’s Dr Richard van Zyl-Smit won best PhD oral presentation at the 2008 Medical Research Council Research Day for his work on developing new rapid tests for diagnosing TB.

Funding

MRC, NRF, EU FP7, EDCTP, NIH, Fogarty, Discovery Foundation, Polio Research Foundation, GSK (through the SA Thoracic Society), Astra Zeneca (through the SA Thoracic Society).

Collaborations

Active collaboration have been established with the following groups:

McGill University, Canada - (M Pai);
UCL, London - (CIDIH- A Zumla, G Rook and J Huggett);
NYU; USA - (Bill Rom and Doris Tse);
University of Sassari, Italy - (Leonardo Sechi);
LUMC, Netherlands - (Tom Ottenhoff);
University Munich, Germany - (Mike Hoelscher);
Lusaka, Zambia - (Peter Mwaba);
UKZN, Durban, South Africa - (Thumbi Ndungu and Vinod Patel);
UMDNJ, New Jersey, USA - (Stephan Schwander);
University of Stellenbosch, SA - (Gerhardt Walzl, Rob Warren and
Tommie Victor);
AIIMS, India - (Suren Sharma);
SVIMS, India - (Mohan Alladi);
Centre for Proteomics, UCT - (Jonathan Blackburn);
Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership for HIV Research and Education - (Rosemary Musonda);
Biomedical Research & Training Institute, Harare - (Peter Mason);
University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences - (Lynn Zinjenah);
Research Support centre, College of Medicine, University of Malawi - (Exnevia Gomo);
Direcção De Saűde De Cidade De Maputo - (Zulmira Silva);
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine - (Professor Stephen Gordon and Professor Stephen Ward);
University College, London - (Ali Zumla, G Rook and M Noursadeghi)
NYU - (Bill Rom), (Michael Weiden and Doris Tse);
Medical Research Council, Durban - (Alex Pym);
K-Rith, Durban, South Africa - (Victoria Kasparowitz);
Public Health Research Institute (UMDNJ) - (Gilla Kaplan)

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The Lung Infection and Immunity Unit actively pursues equitable partnerships with collaborators. We subscribe to the principles of gender equality and transformation.