Carol is the Project Manager for the HIV Virology Section within the Centre for HIV and STIs at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases based in Johannesburg, South Africa. The research laboratory is headed by Prof. Lynn Morris with the main focus of the research being understanding the antibody response to HIV infection and vaccination and exploring the role of neutralizing antibodies in HIV prevention and treatment. The H3A funded project, titled “Immunoglobulin gene diversity in an African population and impact on antibody function in HIV infection” aims to uncover immunoglobulin gene diversity in the Zulu population of South Africa by sequencing antibody genes and examining the impact of diversity on antibody function. This project is uncovering novel alleles which may be important for understanding infection and for developing more effective vaccines. Stored samples from the CAPRISA cohort in KwaZulu-Natal are being used for the study. The laboratory has also recently become involved in COVID-19 research with the development of SARS-CoV-2 neutralization and Fc effector assays and ELISAs.
Prior to her current position (2014-present) Carol was a laboratory based researcher within the Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. She received her PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand for her work on adenoviral delivery of RNA interference (RNAi-) based gene silencing therapeutics for the treatment of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Carol has worked in various disciplines including virology, oncology and cytogenetics.