SAMED Annual Conference – Professor Elizabeth Mayne

Elizabeth Mayne is a specialist haematologist and pathologist with a special interest in immunology. To advance immunology within South Africa, she has established specialist laboratory services in immunophenotyping, cytometry and histology and immunohaematology at the National Health Laboratory Service which provides diagnostic support to a large geographic area including 6 of the 9 provinces in South Africa and neighbouring countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. She is a national expert on flow cytometry and is extensively involved with training scientists, medical students and residents in pathology both from South Africa and from other countries in the African continent and has supervised a number of research projects. She has been involved in national policy formulations for pathology and is committed to providing affordable pathology health care to the largest number of Africans specifically in the areas of transplantation and immunotherapy.

She sits on a number of national and international committees including as a member of the of the South African Immunological Society, chair of the National Expert Committee on Immunology and the current Chair of the Expert Chairs Committee for the National Health Laboratory Service. Internationally, she serves on the executive of the Science and Policy Committee of the International Society of Biological and Environmental Repositories and as the regional ambassador for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

Professor Mayne has published and lectured extensively on immunology and pathology. In addition to her work in research and routine immunopathology, Dr Mayne is principal investigator of the CLS biorepository and in this capacity has been involved in investigation of non-communicable diseases as a member of the H3 Africa consortium. Prof Mayne is also involved in a number of research projects examining HIV-associated conditions including HIV-associated malignancies, HIV-associated non-communicable diseases and opportunistic infections including Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Dr Mayne has completed her doctoral thesis in vascular dysfunction in HIV.