Thumbi Ndung'u


Thumbi Ndung'u is a Kenyan-born HIV/AIDS researcher. He heads the HIV Pathogenesis Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a province of South Africa. In 2012 Ndung'u was awarded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's International Early Career Scientist award. Ndung'u is the first scientist to clone HIV subtype C. Ndung'u holds a Ph.D. from the Harvard School of Public Health. As a graduate student at Harvard, Ndung'u worked with Max Essex at Harvard's AIDS Initiative. Ndung'u is Professor and Victor Daitz Chair in HIV/TB Research at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and is a Max Planck Investigator at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV.