Dr. Pholo Maenetje

Pholo Maenetje holds a PhD in immunology and is currently employed as a Scientist at the Aurum Institute Clinical Research Division in Rustenburg, South Africa. Maenetje is a Principal Investigator of a Strategic Health Innovation Partnerships (SHIP) unit of the South African Medical Research Council (MRC)-funded grant that aims to understand the role of CD4 and CD8 αβ T cells and γ9δ2 T cells in protective TB immunity in the context of household contacts that remain persistently uninfected with TB despite repeated exposure to TB. The rationale is that identifying immune mechanisms that prevent or control and eliminate transient infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis in individuals that remain persistently TB uninfected will provide insights on the mechanisms of protection conferred by adaptive immune responses and to use this information to develop effective TB vaccines and therapeutic strategies to prevent TB infection. Maenetje is also overseeing two observational studies funded by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI); one evaluating the feasibility of enrolling adolescents and assessing the uptake of essential health services within an adolescent friendly clinical trial setting, the other study that aims to evaluate the clinical, laboratory, immunologic and viral markers of disease progression in volunteers with recent HIV infection. He is also overseeing an NIH-R01 funded observational study that aims to explore the relationship between ART initiation and changes in lung structure and function.