CAPRISA research fellow earns her PhD and is awarded an NRF postdoctoral fellowship
Dr Nikita Naicker graduated with her PhD in Medical Biochemistry at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Spring graduation on September 13th, 2018. Her research project focused on the use of herbal therapy as a potential treatment for type two diabetes mellitus. She was awarded a SARChI postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Foundation (NRF) for a two-year period and will be under the mentorship of Dr Kogie Naidoo, Head of the CAPRISA TB-HIV Treatment research programme and Dr Alex Sigal, African Health Research Institute.
Naicker will use time-lapse microscopy, an innovative approach to better understand the biologic effect of metformin on the host immune response to mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb), specifically assessing metformin’s effect on macrophage phago-lysosomal activity and intracellular M.tb growth rates. Naicker said that the study “will help provide new insights into the potential role of metformin in host directed therapy for TB.”