Joy Kabagenyi

Supervisors

Dr. Charles Sande

Dr. Charles Sande

Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, Kenya

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I’m interested in applying modern systems tools to identify biomarkers of life-threatening infections in infants. Our studies are underpinned by a well-established demographic and health surveillance system that integrates comprehensive clinical, laboratory and demographic data for all infants who are admitted to hospital with severe infections as well as those with relatively mild infections. Using samples (nasal secretions, PBMC, serum and whole blood tempus RNA samples) collected from infants presenting with a broad spectrum of disease severity – ranging from life-threatening to mild infections – we employ a broad range of systems biology approaches – including proteomics, transcriptomics, metagenomics and systems serology – to identify biomarkers of life-threatening severe disease in infants.

Joy is an IDeAL and EANBiT funded student pursuing an MSc in Bioinformatics. She holds a BSc. (Biology) from Kyambogo University- Uganda. Currently, Joy is undertaking her research project under the Viral Epidemiology and Control group at KEMRI-Wellcome Trust. Her project aims at profiling immune responses to common and emerging infections in infants during the first years of life. Before joining IDEAL, she worked with the Immunomodulation and Vaccines programme at MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit. While there she worked on various projects that aimed to understand immune profiles to vaccines such as BCG and MVA85A, and infections such as Respiratory Syncytial Virus and how helminth infections influence these profiles. Her interest in using computational methods to understand host and pathogen interactions specifically integrating pathogen genomics and host functional genomics, as a way to contribute knowledge to vaccine and drug development.