Tariro Makadzange

Tariro Makadzange
Tariro Makadzange
Alma mater	Havard Medical School
Occupation	Infectious disease physician-scientist
Employer	Gilead Sciences

Tariro Makadzange is a Zimbabwean medical practitioner and an infectious disease physician-scientist. She is a Director of Biology and Clinical Research in Gilead’s Discovery Virology department. She and her cousin established an HIV clinic in Zimbabwe in 2004 and their initial focus was on trying to address opportunistic infections associated with untreated HIV/AIDS and otherwise provide palliative care to those dying of the disease.

Background

She earned a BA at Smith College, an MD at Harvard Medical School and a Ph.D. (DPhil) at Oxford University. She trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Washington and completed a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital where she later joined the faculty. Her research has focused on HIV immunology, clinical trials and implementation science. She has been engaged in training and mentoring HIV clinicians and researchers and co-established one of the largest HIV treatment programs in Zimbabwe. She currently leads a program focused on the development of a therapeutic HIV vaccine.^[1]

Academic Qualifications

BA (cum luade) Smith College. Thesis: African trypanosomiasis in African wild game animals. *MD Harvard Medical School D.Phil
Balliol College, University of Oxford. Internal Medicine (ABIM Certified)

Career

She has held positions as an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School; Assistant in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital; Boston Faculty; Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT; Harvard Temporary Senior Lecturer; University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences Consultant; and a Physician at Parirenyatwa Hospital and Parirenyatwa Hospital Family Care Centre.

Her research training and career have focused on infectious diseases primarily HIV infection and related opportunistic infections (OIs). Her current work focuses on understanding the immune correlates of HIV disease progression in perinatally infected children and adolescents, as well as the immunopathogenesis of cryptococcal disease in HIV infected adults. In addition to the basic HIV immunology research she is also involved in clinical trials and operational research studies. She recently completed a study to evaluate outcomes in children and adolescents at one of the largest public programs in Zimbabwe, and has worked on establishing an implementation science study to evaluate the efficacy of implementing routine screening for cryptococcal meningitis in reducing mortality among patients initiating ART. She, together with colleagues from the Ragon Institute, have established a basic immunology research laboratory at UZCHS.

She hopes that this lab may begin some critical work towards understanding perinatal HIV immunology and find solutions such as therapeutic vaccines for perinatally infected children. She is committed to capacity-building for science research in Africa and hopes to inspire young Africans to become the lead scientists in finding solutions to medical problems that prevail in Africa.

She spends her time between MGH and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard and the University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences (UZCHS). At UZCHS she manages the Parirenyatwa Hospital Family Care Centre (PHFCC) providing leadership in clinical care, research at the clinic as well as training of interns and residents. PHFCC is one of the largest HIV treatment programs in Zimbabwe. She is a board member of PSI - Population Services International.^[2]