PhD Graduates Dr Jinal Bhiman and Dr Kurt Wibmer
Congratulations to Kurt Wibmer and Jinal Bhiman who obtained their PhD degrees on 12 December 2016 at the University of the Witwatersrand. Kurt’s PhD focused on the
identification, isolation and characterization of HIV -1 neutralizing antibodies, resulting in 2 publications in PLoS Pathogens, one in Journal of Virology and a review article. Jinal’s studies defined virus- antibody interplay during the development of HIV-1 neutralizing antibodies to inform vaccine design, and published her findings in Nature, Nature Medicine and the Journal of Virology. Both won the Faculty Research Prize during their studies, which were supervised by Professors Lynn Morris and Penny Moore at the NICD. Their graduation was also attended by Dr Elin Gray, previously
of the NICD and now based in Australia who first supervised Kurt for his Master’s degree. Kurt and Jinal (who also married while pursuing their PhDs!) have since moved to San Diego in the United States to pursue Postdoctoral careers at the
Scripps Research Institute. We wish them all the best!
From (L-R): Dr Elin Gray, Professor Lynn Morris CAPRISA Research Associate, Dr Kurt Wibmer, Dr Jinal Bhiman and Professor Penny Moore CAPRISA Research Associate.