UKZN Legends Conversations: Professor Miriam Adhikari, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and Professor Malekgapuru Makgoba

The University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Clinical Medicine is hosting a series of conversations to honour the institution's  Alumni legends in Medicine under the leadership of Professor Ncoza Dlova, dean and head of the school.

Professor Miriam Adhikari is a physician and scientist specialising in paediatrics with a focus on neonatology. She is Emeritus Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a neonatologist at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine.[3] She also has a focus on paediatric nephrology and is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.

Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma is a South African politician, medical doctor and former anti-apartheid activist. A longstanding member of the African National Congress (ANC), she currently serves as Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and is the Chancellor of the University of Limpopo. Between October 2012 and January 2017 she served as the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, making her the first woman to lead either that organisation or its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity.


Professor Malekgapuru Makgoba  is an internationally recognised molecular immunologist. He obtained a MBBCh degree from the University of Natal’s Medical School in 1976 and a DPhil degree in Human Immuno-Genetics from the University of Oxford in 1983. In 1999, he edited African Renaissance, a book recording the September 1998 Johannesburg conference on the African Renaissance. He has received many awards and distinctions, including the Science-for-Society Gold Medal of the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2002; the Gold Medal for Outstanding Leadership in Medical Research in 2001; and the National Science and Technology Forum’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Science, Engineering and Technology in South Africa in 1999.

In 2006, he was named as one of 65 Caring Physicians of the World by the World Medical Association in recognition for upholding the medical profession’s fundamental and enduring traditions of care, ethics and science. Prof. Makgoba also received the prestigious National Research Foundation President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his extraordinary contribution to the development of science.

Prof. Makgoba is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and the Royal Society of South Africa. He is also a foreign associate member of the US National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the College of Physicians of South Africa. He was elected as the new Vice-President for Scientific Planning and Review of the prestigious Paris-based International Council for Science in 2011.

Prof. Makgoba was appointed the first black Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wit