Linda-Gail Bekker (South Africa)

Director, Desmond Tutu HIV Centre & Chief Research Officer, Desmond Tutu Health Foundation

Director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town and Chief Research Officer of the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation Professor Linda-Gail Bekker is a physician scientist and infectious disease specialist. Her research interests include programmatic and action research around antiretroviral roll-out and TB integration and the prevention of HIV in women, youth, and MSM. Bekker has recently been involved in a number of COVID-19 vaccine trials and co-leads the Sisonke Phase 3B study which has seen the vaccination of 500,000 health care workers in South Africa. She has led numerous investigator-driven studies on HIV treatment and prevention and on tuberculosis. She is a past president of the International AIDS Society and has served as the international co-chair of both the 9th IAS Conference and 22nd International AIDS Conference. She also co-chaired the Research 4 Prevention Conference that was held in January 2021.