When Karabo Mahlangu completed high school, she knew she had bigger plans for her life.
“I remember my mom giving me job application forms from a factory, but I knew I wanted to go to school,” she recalls.
Mahlangu first applied to study chemical engineering at the Tshwane University of Technology but was turned down. A friend suggested she apply for biomedical technology.
And “it’s been one heck of a journey”!
After graduation, she got a job where she was one of very few black women in her company. “I was treated with respect and given many opportunities. I also got to meet and work with many young black doctors and researchers.”
She couldn’t help but be inspired.
“That’s why I believe it’s so important to go back to the communities [like ga-Rankuwa north of Pretoria], where we come from, to give guidance and exposure to some of these careers that may not be very popular,” she explains.
Today, Mahlangu is a medical technologist working at the Desmond Tutu Health Research Foundation. She runs a state-of-the-art research laboratory in Masiphumelele, a township in Cape Town
“My primary role is to test samples collected during clinical trials. As a lab personnel, I don’t have any contact with the patient. This is to protect the patient’s confidentiality and avoid biases in the results.”
While she doesn’t have contact with patients, Mahlangu and her colleagues are very much involved in the community through various outreach and engagement programmes. People’s well-being is always top of mind.
“From the beginning of my career, I was taught that every sample that comes through the lab must be treated as a person. There’s an individual and a family waiting on those results. And that I must treat everyone like a family member, with the same respect and care I would treat a member of my family.”
Now Malhangu’s lab is part of a three-country study evaluating the Genital Inflammation Test (GIFT). This new innovation is designed to screen for vaginal inflammation associated with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or bacterial vaginosis (BV).
The GIFT-Africa team, a consortium of researchers led by Prof Jo-Ann Passmore from the University of Cape Town, have created and patented the prototype device. Now studies are underway to test how well the device works in a real-life setting.
“Jo-Ann and her team have created this amazing device and I have to validate that it works and compare it to the gold standard,” Mahlangu explains.
Being a medical technologist wasn’t her first choice. In fact, if she weren’t a scientist Mahlangu says she would be on a stage singing.
“People say I belong on stage. And my whole family loves to sing!”