Prof. Salim Abdool Karim (South Africa) is a clinical infectious diseases epidemiologist who is widely recognised for his research contributions in HIV prevention and treatment. He is Director of the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and CAPRISA Professor of Global Health at Columbia University. He is also Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Cornell University, New York. He is also an Associate Member of The Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University.
His clinical research on TB-HIV treatment has shaped international guidelines on the clinical management of co-infected patients. He was co-leader of the CAPRISA 004 tenofovir gel trial that provided proof-of-concept that antiretrovirals can prevent sexually transmitted HIV infection and herpes simplex virus type 2 in women. He is co-inventor on patents which have been used in several HIV vaccine candidates and in passive immunisation strategies with broadly neutralising antibodies.
Dr Abdool Karim is Chair of the UNAIDS Scientific Expert Panel, WHO’s HIV Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee. as well as the WHO TB-HIV Task Force. He serves on the Boards of several journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet Global Health, Lancet HIV and mBio. He is a member of the Royal Society of South Africa, Academy of Science of South Africa, African Academy of Sciences and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He is a member of the US National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Microbiology and the Association of American Physicians.
His awards include the “TWAS Prize in Medical Sciences”, the African Academy of Science’s “Olusegun Obasanjo Prize for Scientific Discovery and Technological Innovation”, the “Science for Society Gold Medal Award” from the Academy of Science in South Africa, the “Platinum Medal Lifetime Achievement Award” from the South African Medical Research Council and Columbia University’s “Allan Rosenfield Alumni Award for Excellence”. The African Union awarded him the “Kwame Nkrumah Continental Scientific Award”, the most prestigious scientific award in Africa.
