Dr Akuzike Kalizang'oma
Pneumonia and Meningitis Pathogens Research Group
The Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme
Akuzike is a medical doctor and microbiologist with clinical and laboratory experience working at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Malawi. He worked as a research intern in the Sepsis group at the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Institute (MLW), gaining skills in infectious disease research and antimicrobial stewardship. Akuzike graduated with his medical degree (MBBS) in 2013 from the College of Medicine in Malawi. He is a Commonwealth Masters scholar, obtaining an MSc degree in Biomedical Science: Medical Microbiology (with distinction) from the University of Westminster in 2016. He is now a recipient of a PhD studentship with the Mucosal Pathogens Research Unit in the Department of Infection and Immunity at The University College London, supervised by Rob Heyderman.
Aku's PhD research utilised conventional and molecular microbiology, and bioinformatics to investigate the impact of increasing antibiotic use and vaccine rollout on the frequency of intra- and interspecies genetic exchange of antibiotic resistance among Streptococcus species in a prospective infant cohort.
Aku graduated in 2022 and is now a post-doctoral research scientist with MLW.
Links to selected publications:
1) Kalizang'oma A, Kwambana-Adams BA, Chan JM, Viswanath A, Gori A, et al. 2022. Novel Multilocus Sequence Typing and Global Sequence Clustering Schemes for characterizing the population diversity of Streptococcus mitis. J Clin Microbiol doi: 10.1128/jcm.00802-22.
2) Kalizang'oma A, Chaguza C, Gori A, Davison C, Beleza S, et al. 2021. Streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes that frequently colonise the human nasopharynx are common recipients of penicillin-binding protein gene fragments from Streptococcus mitis. Microb Genom 7:000622.
3) Lester R, Haigh K, Wood A, ... , Kalizang'oma A, ... , Feasey NA. 2020. Sustained reduction in third-generation cephalosporin usage in adult inpatients following introduction of an antimicrobial stewardship program in a large urban hospital in Malawi. Clin Infect Dis doi: 10.1093/cid/ciaa162.