Background

Gray was born on December 14, 1962, in Boksburg. Her father was a miner and her mother was a bookkeeper. They lived in a conservative poor area of South Africa. Her family was not conservative, but radical, and they integrated into the black community. She was the fifth of six children who nearly all gained degrees and three of them took higher degrees. Gray's father had been to college and he was ambitious for his children including Glenda who from the age of six wanted to be a doctor.

Education

Glenda obtained her MBBCh degree from the Wits Medical School and completed a Fellowship in Paediatrics and Child Health at the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. She studied at University of the Witwatersrand in 1980 for six years and where she later worked.

In 1999, Dr Gray received a Fogarty Training Fellowship at Columbia University in the US and completed an intensive training programme on clinical epidemiology at Cornell University, USA.

Career

Glenda has worked as medical officer at various South African hospitals, including Coronation and Chris Hani Baragwanath, as well as the Wits Department of Paediatrics and Neonatology. She is currently executive director of the Wits Perinatal HIV Research Unit, and co-principal investigator and director of international programmes of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded HIV Vaccine Clinical Trial Network. Dr Gray’s research has contributed significantly to the understanding of HIV. Her research into post-exposure prophylaxis for PMTCT has led to the development of clinical guidelines that have been adopted internationally.

Glenda has also been engaged in advancement of HIV vaccine research and has led the clinical development of South Africa’s first two HIV vaccines, the SAAVI DNA and MVA vaccines. She is the principal investigator at the Soweto Clinical Trials Unit, which has five clinical research sites funded by the NIH and are conducting research in HIV treatment and prevention. She is also the site investigator for Project Accept, a large multi-study community randomised trial funded by the National Institute of Mental Health that looks at the impact of behavioural interventions in reducing HIV incidences. She is a National Research Foundation A-rated researcher.

Since 2003, Dr Gray has contributed three book chapters and 193 peer-reviewed articles. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of AIDS as well as AIDS Research and Treatment, and has reviewed numerous local and international journals. She is a member of the scientific steering committees for the International Congress on Drug Therapy and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), and chaired the IAVI Meeting in 2010.

Achievements

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  Glenda Gray went down in history as the President & CEO of the South African Medical Research Council and a Research Professor of Paediatrics at the University of the Witwatersrand, and a director at the Perinatal HIV Research Unit in Soweto. Based in South Africa, she is the Co-PI of the HVTN and Director of HVTN Africa Programs. She is a member of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutch. She has expertise in the field of mother to child transmission of HIV, adolescent HIV prevention and treatment, and HIV vaccine and microbicide research.
  
  Her awards include the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, along with James McIntyre, for pioneering work in PMTCT; the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care Hero of Medicine Award; and the Femina Woman of Nineties Award for her contribution to perinatal HIV research. She was also the co-recipient of the N’Galy-Mann Lectureship Award with McIntyre. She and received an honorary doctorate in science from the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada in 2012. In 2013, she received the Order of Mapungubwe, South Africa’s highest honor, for achievements in the international arena which have served South Africa's interests. In the same year she received the EDCTP Outstanding African Scientist award.
  
  In 2017, Glenda Gray became one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Pills Profits Protest: Chronicle of the Global AIDS Movement (Institutional Use)

Politics

Glenda was active in the anti-apartheid movement.

Views

Glenda campaigned to de-segregate South African hospitals.

Quotations: "Now we begin a scientific exploration that could hold great promise for our country."

Membership

Dr Gray is a member of the Academy of Science and chairs its standing committee on health. She was elected into the US Institute of Medicine, National Academies, as a foreign associate in 2011. She was also elected as a fellow of the Academy of Microbiology.

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  Academy of Science of South Africa

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  US Institute of Medicine, National Academies

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  Academy of Microbiology

Connections

Glenda has three children. One of Gray’s daughters is now a 21-year-old college student, the other a 17-year-old in high school. She also has an 11-year-old son. Her husband, Jacobus Kloppers, is a well-known South African artist.

Glenda's oldest child has just completed a documentary — a school project — on HIV vaccines. She recently found video footage of her mother at a protest.

Spouse:

Jacobus Kloppers

He is a well-known South African artist.

References

• Time Magazine (May 1, 2017/May 8, 2017) The 100 Most Influential People