Musa Mhlanga

Dr. Musa Mhlanga is a cell biologist who holds a PhD in cell biology & molecular genetics from the New York University School of Medicine (2003). He began his PhD at Rockefeller University and upon completion of his doctoral work he was awarded a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at the Institut Pasteur in Paris to work in the laboratory of nuclear cell biology.

In June 2008 he joined the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CISR) in Pretoria, South Africa where he headed the Synthetic Biology Program, and was the research group leader of the Laboratory of Gene Expression and Biophysics. He currently leads a major translational research initiative at the University of Cape Town.

Dr. Mhlanga also holds a visiting faculty appointment to Harvard Medical School and to the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Lisbon, Portugal. He is the founder of three early stage Biotech start-up companies in France, United States and South Africa.