Janine Scholefield

Africa encompasses the greatest and most diverse genetic variation in the world. My belief is that positive exploitation of this unique heritage, in combination with an advanced research network could address our continent’s greatest health challenges. We focus our endeavours on developing models of disease in a dish using advanced imaging, genome engineering and stem cell technology. Our goal is to combine these molecular tools to develop clinically accurate, yet inexpensive cellular models relevant to African health concerns. Specifically our focus is infectious disease susceptibility and adverse drug reactions with the ultimate goal of shortening the pipeline of developing population specific drugs. To this end we develop genome engineered iPSC-derived macrophage models as well as 3D liver-like microspheroids to assess adverse drug reactions in an African setting.