Prof Smith, Anthony

Prof Anthony Smith is currently employed as a Principal Medical Scientist at the Centre for Enteric Diseases (CED) at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, South Africa. Smith obtained his PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the University of the Witwatersrand and holds joint staff appointments with the University of Pretoria (Extraordinary Professor) and University of the Witwatersrand (Senior Research Officer).
Smith has a ‘C2’ rating with the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa; a rating category for established researchers with a sustained recent record of productivity in their field of study. CED is a reference centre in South Africa for human isolates of Salmonella species, Shigella species, Campylobacter species, Vibrio cholerae, Listeria monocytogenes and diarrhoeagenic Escherichia coli. He is the coordinator for PulseNet Africa and a member of the PulseNet International steering committee (PulseNet is a molecular subtyping network for global enteric disease surveillance).
His current activities include diagnosis, surveillance and epidemiology of enteric bacterial pathogens in South Africa. He lectures and teaches on the application of molecular techniques in the microbiology laboratory, including techniques related to laboratory identification and characterisation of bacterial enteric pathogens. These techniques include PCR, molecular subtyping of bacteria (PFGE, MLVA and MLST), whole-genome sequencing and metagenomics. Smith is also involved with supervision of post-graduate students and training of intern medical scientists. His supervision of post-graduate students includes six PhD students and 14 MSc students, and his publication record includes 96 peer-reviewed publications.