COVID-19 Conversations with GLAUDINA LOOTS

This week we speak to Glaudina Loots the Director for health innovation at the Department of Science and Technology and responsible for implementing the health components of the bioeconomy strategy for South Africa. She concentrates on enabling research and innovation that leads to discovering and evaluating new drug and treatment regimes, developing new vaccines, and new robust diagnostics for identifying diseases or conditions and the development of medical devices. The range of research activities that Loots encourages as part of the portfolio includes interrogation of indigenous knowledge, basic molecular science and genetics, chemistry and biochemistry, biotechnology, nanotechnology, nuclear physics, information communication technology, and manufacturing processes and engineering.

Among others, Loots serves on the South African National Health Research Committee, the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) , and is a ministerial committee on antimicrobial resistance. She is also a board member at the Biobank Institute, a public-private partnership aimed at the local manufacturing of vaccines and biologics