Agness is a pre-PhD research intern within the Viral Immunology research group under the supervision of Dr Kondwani Jambo and Prof Henry Mwandumba. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Laboratory Technology from the University of Malawi (College of Medicine), and a Master of Life Sciences in Biomolecular Sciences from Tohoku University (Japan), in 2011 and 2018, respectively.
Her internship is linked to a project that is investigating the phenotype and functional profile of HIV-specific CD8+ T cells in gut. She is also involved in development and optimization of tools to detect HIV-infected cells in the blood, lung and gut. Agness’s main interest is understanding the mechanism of HIV reservoir formation in tissues.
Her immediate goal is to pursue a PhD in Immunology and her long-term career goal is to become an independent researcher in Africa focusing on developing of strategies for HIV cure.