WP1 : GIFT PROJECT MANAGEMENT TEAM
This team oversees management and coordination of all activities within the five focus areas of GIFT-Africa. The UCT (South Africa) team is responsible for financial oversight and disbursement of funding to consortium partners, project communication planning, data management and analysis, training and capacity building.
JO-ANN PASSMORE – (UCT; TEAM LEAD; Co-Pl)
jo-ann.passmore@uct.ac.za
Jo-Ann is a Principle Medical Scientist with the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) and an Associate Professor in the Division of Medical Virology in the Institute for Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine (IDM) at UCT. She heads the Mucosal Infections Group (MIG) at UCT and the HIV Mucosal Immunology laboratory at the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). Since 2002, her research has focused on studying genital tract adaptive and innate immune responses associated susceptibility to sexually transmitted viral diseases including HIV and Human Papillomavirus. She is also a member of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) Mucosal Working Group, where my research aims at developing methods to investigate HIV-specific immunity in mucosal tissue including the female genital tract.( https://passmore-lab.org.za/)
TANKO FATIME RAMLA – (UCT)
tanko.fatimeramla@uct.ac.za
Ramla is originally from Cameroon, She completed her tertiary education in biomedical sciences at UCT. She joined the Passmore-lab (https://passmore-lab.org.za/) in 2017 as a postdoctoral research fellow where she is applying her skills in HIV immunology to understand factors influencing vaginal health and the risk of HIV infection. One aspect of her work focuses on evaluating the performance of point-of-care tests to detect asymptomatic STIs/bacterial vaginosis (BV) in women. This work seeks to contribute towards improving reproductive health outcomes and reducing the burden of STIs/BV. In the GIFT cohort, she will investigate the vaginal microbiome (with Prof Janneke Van De Wijgert; UMC).
TANYA PIDWELL – (UCT)
tanyapidwell@googlemail.com
Pidwell, BSc Hons, is the GIFT Clinical Research Project Manager, responsible for the planning and execution of GIFT. Tanya organizes, and directs the activities across all Work Packages and ensures synergy at the project level, by meeting Sponsor, UCT and Stakeholder requirements, applicable standards and regulations, according to time, quality/scope, GCP and budget constraints.