Rate My Professor Penny Moore

Professor Penny Moore is a virologist and the DST/NRF South African Research Chair of Virus-Host Dynamics at the University of the Witwatersrand. She serves as Research Professor and Director of the Antibody Immunity Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, where she is also a Senior Scientist. Moore holds a Master of Science degree in Microbiology from the University of the Witwatersrand and a PhD in Virology from University College London, awarded in 2003. Her research focuses on HIV neutralizing antibodies and their interactions with HIV, with applications to the development of an HIV vaccine, as well as humoral immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, including the isolation of virus-specific monoclonal antibodies and contributions to understanding the Omicron variant.

Moore previously held positions including Reader and Associate Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and roles at the Centre for HIV and STI at the NICD and the Wits School of Pathology. In 2015, she was awarded the Chair in Virus-Host Dynamics for Public Health at Wits. Her career includes over two decades of contributions resulting in more than 100 publications. She received the Sydney Brenner Fellowship from the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2009, the Friedel Sellschop Award from the University of the Witwatersrand, and the Silver Medal from the South African Medical Research Council in 2018 for scientific contributions within ten years of her PhD. Moore is a founding member of the South African Young Academy of Science, a full member of the American Society for Virology, and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. She delivered an inaugural lecture on Virology and Communicable Diseases in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand.