MRC Career award

MRC Career award

Antigen-specific IFN-γ release assays and diagnosis of TB infection: relevance to SA & variance between high and low incidence settings?

Dr Keertan Dheda is a post-doctoral scientist and a physician accredited in Pulmonology (respiratory medicine) and General Internal Medicine. His undergraduate degree in Medicine was undertaken at the University of Witwatersrand, where he was the recipient of the Standard Bank and Noristan Scholarship, a University Council Certificate of Merit and an exchange scholarship at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, USA. He graduated in 1992 with distinctions in Medicine and Surgery and completed his internal medicine fellowship examinations, FCP(SA), in 1998 with distinction (awarded the Suzman Gold Medal), before moving to the UK in December 1999 to undertake training in pulmonary medicine. He was the recipient of a British Lung Foundation Research Award in 2002 and completed his PhD in 2005 (role of IL-4 and IL-4delta2 in human pulmonary tuberculosis; University College London). His doctoral research yielded a number of novel scientific contributions, which included invited publications, original publications in high impact factor journals (including Nat Rev Imm, Trends in Imm, J Infect Dis, AIDS and AJRCCM), book chapters, policy documents and invited talks at international meetings.

He has established an international collaborative network (Africa, USA and Europe) to facilitate studies in mycobacterial immunity, specifically using cells from the human lung, and TB and HIV-related diagnostics. One of his translational research interests is the utility of antigen-specific IFN-γ release assays for the diagnosis of TB infection, the study of which, forms the basis of the current MRC award.