Michelle completed her PhD (Molecular Medicine) through the University of the Witwatersrand in 2013, exploring in vitro HIV-1 drug resistance phenotyping, genotyping and novel virological failure detection tools for clinical patient management. Her research was performed at Virco Lab, Inc (now Janssen Diagnostics) in Belgium and at the NHLS in Johannesburg. Michelle put into practice her PhD acquired skills at partner laboratories in Zimbabwe (Newlands Clinic; Harare) and Uganda (JCRC; Kampala, Fort Portal, Mbale). Post-PhD, she spent much of her career in the molecular research and diagnostics environment and related quality systems at the NHLS, focusing on HIV drug resistance and haematological malignancies. She was actively involved with the development of education programmes and training of haematopathology registrars, intern medical scientists, and medical technologists. As a project manager, Michelle carried out the design and implementation of an NHLS dashboard to enable the monitoring of performance indices of the Department of Health’s HIV programme. She is a registered medical scientist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa and currently serves as an examiner for intern medical scientist portfolios.

Having joined Diagnostech (research and IVD distributor company) in 2015, Michelle strives to enhance the use of state-of-the-art technologies to drive the highest level of quality research and diagnostics in Africa. She has a personal interest in translational research focusing on the medical diagnostics environment. Within the IVD regulatory context, she’s currently an executive member of the Southern Africa Laboratory Diagnostics Association (SALDA), a member of the SAMED regulatory committee, and the Management Representative for Quality and Technical Director at Diagnostech.