BIOSKETCH
Professor Boitumelo Phakathi is the Academic Head of Discipline of General Surgery and the Chief Specialist Surgeon with research interests in breast surgery. She holds an MBChB (UKZN), Fellowship of the College of Surgeons’ certificate (FCS(SA) and Master’s in Surgery (UP). She completed PhD in Surgery through the University of Witwatersrand, investigating the PAM50 Intrinsic subtypes in HIV positive and HIV negative patients with Breast Cancer in 2021. She received Hamilton Naki Clinical Scholarship (now known as Prof Bongani Mayosi Clinical Scholarship) to enable her to spend time in the Molecular Laboratory focusing on the breast cancer specimens’ processing (deparaffinisation and macrodissection) in preparation for the RNA extraction, purification & analysis in order to determine the breast cancer intrinsic subtypes and risk of recurrence score, using the PAM50 gene expression assay. She received several awards, including the Sceales Antrobus Research prize for the Best Breast Cancer Research at the 48th Surgical Research Society of Southern Africa Research Conference, in 2021. She is currently the Principal Investigator of an Interdepartmental, Inter-institutional research investigating the synchronous and metachronous breast cancer and cervical neoplasia (CIN and Cervical cancer), one of the aims being to determine the causal relationship of HPV in HIV negative and HIV positive patients with breast cancer. She was recently awarded the NRF Black Academic Advancement Program (BAAP)-post-PHD track.Professor Phakathi also supervises the research projects of MMED, MMEDSci and PhD candidates. She is a member of the Breast Interest Group of Southern Africa (BIGOSA) and a member of a PanAfrican Cancer Research Institute (PACRI) which is dedicated to cutting edge integrated translational cancer research, education and clinical care with a vision of accelerating discoveries to prevent and cure cancer in the African region.