Grant Napier

Job title: Tryps Programme Manager

Role in GALVmed:  Establishment and management of the GALVmed South Africa Tryps Programme Office in Johannesburg and is responsible for overall management of the GALVmed Tryps Programme. This includes: negotiation and management of contracts with funders and discovery/development partners; supervision and responsibility for programme staff, consultants, budgets and reporting; and exploring and identifying new opportunities for delivery of different African Animal Trypanosomosis products.

Nationality: South African

Joined GALVmed: September 2011

Relevant career highlights: Grant is a molecular biologist whose career has spanned >15 years working as: a scientist in the discovery of a recombinant vaccine for African horsesickness at the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute; as a product manager in human infectious disease molecular sales and marketing for Roche Diagnostics; as business development and project manager in human clinical trials contract laboratory services for the Wits Health Consortium; and as the as Managing Director for Elevation Biotech an HIV biologicals discovery company that was spun out of the University of the Witwatersrand and the South African National Health Laboratory Service and that conducted HIV vaccine discovery research with funding from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).

Prior to joining GALVmed he worked as an independent business development consultant to the biotech and healthcare industry in South Africa providing strategic, business development and project management services to local and multi-national companies and NGO's.

Education:

M.Sc in Genetics, University of Pretoria (1999)
B.Sc (Hons) in Microbiology, University of Cape Town (1992)

Key publications:

Gumbi, S. and Napier, G. (2011) In W.J.M Genugten & A.K. Meijknecht (Eds.) Harnessing Intellectual Property Rights for Development Objectives. The double role of IPRs in the Context of Facilitating MDGs Nos. 1 and 6. (pp. 269-390). Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publishers.

Cerutti, N., Mendelow, B.V., Napier G.B., Papathanasopoulos, M.A., Killick, M., Khati, M, Stevens W, Capovilla, A. (2010) Stabilization of HIV-1 gp120-CD4 receptor complex through targeted interchain disulfide exchange. J Biol. Chem. 285(33): 25743-52. http://www.jbc.org/content/285/33/25743.abstract

Napier G.B. (2008). Rational Drug Design. In Mendelow, B., Ramsay, M., Chetty, N. & Stevens, W. (Eds.), Molecular Medicine for Clinicians (pp. 396-404). Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Interests
Professional: Drug, vaccine and diagnostics discovery and development, especially in infectious and neglected diseases, with particular passion for HIV and infectious diseases relevant to sub-Saharan Africa.

Personal: Mountain biking, running, cooking, writing and mostly music and singing (in all forms) and travelling especially in least developed countries and wilderness area's in sub-Saharan Africa.