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McNamara grant advances PhD student’s HIV research
Author: Sue Segar
Published: 17/05/2019

​When Mary Grace Katusiime, a PhD student in the Department of Medical Virology of Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, was awarded the Margaret McNamara Grant recently, she felt that she had been recognised as a young African woman who has overcome many obstacles to get to where she is today.

Katusiime, who studies HIV in children, said the grant – $7 000 or some R100 000 for the year 2019 – is a valuable stepping stone for her to keep her studies in the research she is so passionate about going.

“This award is very special to me. It tells me that there is hope for the young African girl who comes from a family where things are not handed down to her. To have been awarded this grant at this stage of my career and to be able to carry on doing my research and continuing my vision, is just wonderful. It is a lifeline and came at a point where I had run out of other funding," Katusiime said in an interview.

The Margaret McNamara Education Grant (MMEG) is a non-profit public charity which supports the education of women from developing countries who are committed to work for the benefit of women and children in developing countries. It was set up in 1981 to honour the late Margaret McNamara, who dedicated her life to advocating education for underserved populations worldwide.

The grant enables the receiver to continue her academic studies from January to December 2019 and covers expenses ranging from tuition to course material, research needs, research related travel and daily student living.

Explaining her research, Katusiime said they study a cohort of South African children who were born with HIV. “They started HIV treatment soon after birth and are now more or less ten years old. As part of a follow-up programme, they come for regular hospital visits and blood tests.

“With regular blood tests, the HI virus is undetectable in these children. This means that the antiretroviral medication has completely stopped the virus from continuing to replicate, that these children have responded well to the treatment and that they are otherwise healthy individuals.

“However, we know the virus continues to persist in these children because HIV replicates by inserting itself into cells and is using the cells' machinery to make copies of itself. When you introduce antiretroviral drugs, you can stop viruses from continuing to infect new cells, but the treatment has no effect on cells already infected before the children started therapy. We call cells that hide 'dormant' or 'sleeping' HIV reservoir cells.

“My study focuses on these reservoir cells. We try to characterise these cells and the virus that persist over many years, despite the children having responded well to therapy.

“These reservoir cells are the barrier to curing the infection and our research forms part of the global cure agenda. We hope to inform ongoing efforts aimed at eliminating reservoir cells and cure the infection. The end game is to inform cure approaches."

Katusiime was born in Uganda and moved to Botswana when she was two years old, where she spent most of her childhood. Her parents worked for a Christian non-governmental organisation. “Interestingly, my parents worked intensively with communities that were hard hit by HIV. Their work included campaigning and conveying the message on how to prevent HIV from spreading from a social point of view.

“My whole upbringing took place in a climate in which I was learning about HIV – but mostly the social aspect. When I started high school we moved to South Africa, and I spent the rest of my childhood in Mpumalanga. There I worked very closely with young people and their parents in underprivileged communities who were fighting or recovering from the effects of HIV socially. That upbringing has contributed to where I am today."

Katusiime's long-term goal is to use her skills on the African continent. “That is where my skills are needed. I hope to see much more well-established research taking place on in this continent and translating to the people who need it. My passion is to become a leader in this field."

Katusiime loves reading. She also works as a Sunday school teacher and facilitates a group of young women, called Sisterhood Connect, through her church, Hillsong. “It's a group where young women like me who are in the same age group and are in need of support and sisterhood, can come together to support each other."

She also works as a volunteer at a home for abandoned babies in Goodwood. “Many of these babies have HIV. It is so much fun just spending time with them – taking care of them and bonding with them. They remind me of why I do what I do."​