Mary Nantongo

Mary Nantongo is a Biomedical Scientist with a Masters's Degree in Immunology and Clinical Microbiology of Makerere University where she was introduced to the Science of HIV-1 diversity. She also holds a Bachelor's degree in Medical Laboratory Sciences from Mbarara University of Science and Technology as well as a Diploma in Medical Laboratory Technology of Makerere University. Mary has worked in various positions and institutions, including working as a Senior Program Officer at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and a Research Associate with the Presidential Scientific Initiative on Epidemics under Statehouse. In these two positions, she has worked at the National level with different Scientists in Uganda on projects to develop diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics as response tools to manage COVID-19 and future Epidemics. She was previously employed at the department of Immunology and Molecular Biology-Makerere University as Project Coordinator/Scientist on two HIV-related projects and one SARS-CoV-2 project where she performed various laboratory-based assays and techniques such as DNA/RNA extraction, protein extraction/purification Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISA), PBMC isolation, Cell Cultures, Flow Cytometry, Sequencing Techniques such as Sanger and Next Generation Sequencing, Application of Bioinformatics tools to perform sequence analysis. She has mentored a total of six graduate students in the Immunology and Clinical Microbiology program through their Master's Research Projects. She has also assisted in teaching Vaccinology to 2nd Year undergraduate Medical students of Makerere University. Mary also has 9 years’ experience in Clinical Laboratory practice which she attained during her service as a Laboratory Manager/Scientist at Lancet Laboratories Uganda Limited, Nsambya Hospital Home-Care Department Laboratory and Franciscan Health Centre IV, Nakasongola. She is fascinated with Basic Sciences Research and translating it into Clinical care to solve many local health problems in Uganda and Africa. Having won a scholarship with Case-Western Reserve University, is a grand opportunity that Mary thinks her dreams are going to come true. She expects to learn modern state of the art techniques which she will apply back in Uganda to come up with affordable innovative laboratory test assays to diagnose diseases and close certain gaps in diagnosis and management especially of HIV and related infectious diseases but also capacity building.