Welcome Mish-Al Barday & Andrew Redfern as new PhD students

Both Mish-Al and Andrew are qualified paediatricians in Cape Town, South Africa. She has a Diploma in Child Health (2018) and a Diploma in HIV management (2019). Mish-Al completed her Masters/MMED in TBM severity and BCG status which was presented at The Union Conference in Bali in November 2024. She started working at the Desmond Tutu TB centre, Stellenbosch University in September 2023 and has been involved in an NIH funded project on Multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). She has always had a keen interest in infectious diseases and public health preventative measures in low- and middle-income countries. Andrew currently works in the Paediatric Emergency and Ambulatory department at Tygerberg Children’s Hospital, and his main area of interest is all things Paediatric Emergency Medicine.  He serves on the Paediatric Emergency Care South Africa special interest group of EMSSA and the South Africa Paediatric Association executive. He really enjoys teaching, is active on twitter for the #FOAMED (@PaedCapeTown), and is consistently curious about how to be a better leader.

Mish-Al’s PhD will focus on mucosal surveillance of respiratory pathogens and immune responses in South African children with acute respiratory tract infections (RTIs), with the aim of identifying predictors of disease severity and short- to medium-term respiratory morbidity. Building on findings from the previous EU-funded VERDI study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this project will validate mucosal immune signatures of disease severity and explore post-pandemic changes in the epidemiology of respiratory pathogens. Additionally, the study will assess short-term lung health outcomes in children recovering from RTIs to better understand their respiratory recovery and inform future clinical interventions.

Andrew’s PhD will focus on evaluating the use of point-of-care lung ultrasound (PLUS) in children with lower RTIs. He will compare ultrasound features across different aetiologies (bacterial, viral, mixed, atypical), as well as among children with varying likelihoods of pulmonary tuberculosis. He will also develop a prediction model combining PLUS with clinical and laboratory data to help distinguish viral from bacterial LRTI in low- and middle-income country settings.