International plenary guest speaker

Professor Christoph Lange

Borstel, Germany

Christoph Lange studied biology at Kiel University and the University of Freiburg. He then studied medicine at the Witten/Herdecke University, where he completed his PhD in 1995. His scientific work focuses on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) epidemiology in Europe as well as the development and implementation of individualised tuberculosis treatment methods.

National focused guest speaker

Professor Nazir Ismail

Head, Centre for Tuberculosis & WHO-SRL at NICD

Professor Nazir Ismail was appointed in 2012 as the Head of the Centre for Tuberculosis incorporating the WHO supranational TB Reference Laboratory at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases/NHLS. He is a pathologist by training and is the lead tuberculosis researcher at NICD with a focus on TB diagnostics, epidemiology, public health responses and transmission.

Two major national studies were completed under his leadership; the SA National TB Drug Resistance survey 2012-14 and the trends in microbiologically confirmed TB nationally and sub-nationally. In addition, he has directed development and significant outputs in the field of genomics using next generation technologies. Lastly, transmission studies of DR-TB across SA are being conducted providing new knowledge in understanding drivers of TB in a high burden setting.