Rate My Professor Patrick Arbuthnot

Professor Patrick Arbuthnot is a Personal Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and Director of the Wits/SAMRC Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit. He holds the qualifications MB BCh, BScHons and PhD(Witwatersrand). He graduated with his medical degree in 1985 and completed his PhD in 1992. After his doctoral studies, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Necker Hospital in Paris, where he investigated the development of gene therapy approaches for the treatment of liver cancer and hepatitis B virus infection. In the mid-1990s he established the Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, which he continues to direct and where he supervises research.

Professor Arbuthnot has been affiliated with the University of the Witwatersrand for more than 46 years. His work has contributed to advancing gene therapy research in South Africa and on the African continent, with a focus on antiviral strategies targeting hepatitis B virus and related conditions. He leads a research unit that includes molecular biologists, medical personnel and postgraduate students, and he collaborates with team leaders on projects involving RNA interference, viral vectors, genome engineering and mRNA technologies.