Traditional Medicine

Biography
Dr Mahasha holds a doctorate degree in Medical Immunology from the University of Pretoria where he conducted research focused on HIV pathogenesis project, an M.Sc. degree in Medical Biochemistry from the University of Stellenbosch – research focused on TB pathogenesis project, a B.Sc. Honours in Biochemistry – research focused on Cancer project, and B.Sc. degree in Life Sciences majoring in Biochemistry and Microbiology at the University of Limpopo. He has post-doctoral experience from the University of Virginia (USA) and University of Venda (South Africa) where he worked as an NIH Fogarty International Centre (FIC), Water and Health in Limpopo Innovations (WHIL), as a Genetic Epidemiology/Statistical Genetics and Metabolomics Post-doctoral Research Fellow, and at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) as a Professional Development Programme Post-doctoral Fellowship where he conducted research on a HIV vaccines (HIV functional cure). He has also completed a courses in Advanced Project Management with the University of Cape Town and in Manufacturing and Registering Complementary and Herbal Medicines with the University of Pretoria. Dr Mahasha has 20 years’ research experience where he conducted research on Cancer, HIV/AIDS and TB, Vaccine Implementation Research and in the field of Precision Medicine. Since 2019 he has been working as a Project Manager representing the SAMRC ‘s Grants, Innovation and Product Development (GIPD) Unit, Precision Medicine Portfolio, and the Indigenous Knowledge system (IKS) and African Traditional Medicines (ATMs) Strategic Projects. He is also appointed as an Extraordinary Lecturer in the Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Pretoria (South Africa), and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the School of Nursing and Public Health, University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal (South Africa). He is an external Assessor/examiner for the University of Johannesburg, Faculty of Health Sciences. He has worked as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Limpopo in the Department of Pre-Clinical Sciences (lecturing Medical and Nutritional Biochemistry). He also worked in the NGO space as a Senior Research Manager at EQUIP Innovation for Health – Right to Care working in 17 countries across Africa, South East Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean towards achieving the UNAIDS 90- 90-90 targets, on a project funded by USAID which included HIV Self-testing (HIV) also as a Co-PI, Multi-month Scripting and Dispensing (MMSD) and other projects including Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PreP) demo projects (Namibia), Hepatitis C Virus projects (HCV) (Ukraine and Myanmar) and Costing and cost-effectiveness assessments of various innovative interventions. He served as member of the Technical Advisory Panel to the Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC) and Health Ombud from 12 February 2020 until 11 February 2022. He currently serves as a member of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Collaborator Network, as a member of the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions (SACNASP), as a member of the South African Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SASBMB), as a member of Cochrane, as a member of the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), as a member of the Federations of Infectious Diseases Societies of Southern Africa (FIDSSA), as a fellow of Scholars Academic and Scientific Society (SAS Society) (FSASS), as a member of the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition, as a member of the International Community Advisory Group for STANDING Together which is a project working to develop Standards for data Diversity, Inclusivity and Generalizability, and as a member of the Governance, Ethics, Evidence, Policy and Practice (ge2p2) global which is a non-profit foundation with a public benefit corporation affiliate advancing scientific rigor, ethical resilience, and integrity in research and evidence generation informing governance, policy, and practice. Phetole has published and co-authored more than 35 high level research articles including those published in the Lancet and Nature journals, with more than 25318 citations on Google Scholar, 24,497 citations on AD Scientific Index, 20,495 citations on ResearchGate and 21,952 citations on Scopus with current h-index over 30, 30, 32 and 25, respectively.