Dr Maphanga, Tsidiso

Dr Tsidiso Maphanga is an emerging scientist in the field of Medical Mycology. She is currently a senior Scientist at the Centre for Healthcare-Associated Infections, Antimicrobial Resistance and Mycoses at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. She obtained her PhD degree from the University of Free State at the Department of Medical Microbiology under the supervision of Prof Nelesh P. Govender. Her research interests include understanding the molecular epidemiology of fungal pathogens which causes invasive diseases among hospitalized patients and this has led to the discovery of Blastomyces emzantsi and reclassification of thermally-dimorphic pathogens belonging to the Ajellomycetaceae family of which was the milestone for her PhD degree.
She also has an interest in antifungal susceptibility testing and understanding the mechanism of resistance of fungal pathogens. She is involved in the evaluation of newly developed diagnostic assays for accurate diagnosis and management of fungal pathogens causing life-threatening invasive mycoses (including candidemia and endemic mycoses). She has managed six research projects to completion and collaborated with both national and international researchers to produce more than 26 peer-reviewed publications with high impact factor.