Ms Mapengo, Rutendo

Rutendo Eugenia Mapengo completed her honours degree at the University of Fort Hare in 2012, majoring in Biochemistry and Microbiology. She obtained her Master’s degree in Molecular and Cell biology from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2016 and worked at as a Medical Scientist at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases for three years where she focused on vaccine development and the virological and immunological aspects of HIV-1.
Mapengo specialised in tissue culture, antibodies expression and quality control, virus production and molecular biology. She is also competent in microbial biotechnology, genomics and recombinant DNA technology. Currently she is studying towards a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her research focusses on the epidemiology of Histoplasma capsulatum in South Africa, with a major focus on understanding the phenotypic characterisation and population comparative genomics of Histoplasma isolates from South African patients.