Dr Jinal N. Bhiman began her research career in HIV virus-host dynamics, with a focus on how viral evolution during chronic HIV infection can be exploited to design preventative vaccines.
Through this research she performed detailed viral evolution analyses and isolated monoclonal antibodies through both single B cell sorting and B cell culture.
Following this, she was involved in assessing immunogenicity of various HIV immunogens in multiple animal models, including mice, rabbits and non-human primates.
Bhimans more recent research within the viral respiratory pathogen field focuses on influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). She has been involved in the development of diagnostics, surveillance, antigenic characterisation and whole genome sequencing for these three viruses. She has also been involved in investigating vaccine and infection induced antibody responses in the periphery and mucosa to SARS-CoV-2.
Bhiman was the laboratory lead on assay development, validation and implementation during the early phase of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in South Africa and led the rapid set-up and verification of an in-house diagnostic test for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. She has provided expert advice to the WHO and Africa CDC lab diagnostics working group, as well as the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Viral Evolution. In addition, she is the PI on a European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) grant aimed at developing an affordable, point-of-care test for SARS-CoV-2 and using genomic surveillance to inform molecular epidemiology of this virus.
