Quarraisha Abdool Karim

In 2017, the BBC named Abdool Karim as one of the seven trailblazing women in science.

In 2007, CAPRISA conducted a landmark clinical trial, named CAPRISA 004, and Abdool Karim was the principal investigator. The underlying aim of this study was to investigate the effects of Tenefovir gel in reducing the risk of HIV contraction. The CAPRISA 004 Tenofovir gel trial also resulted in a proof of concept for Microbicides. Overall, the study demonstrated protection against the HIV infection, with a 39% reduction in infections. Additionally, at the XVIII International AIDS Conference, 2010, the results of their CAPRISA 004 study led to a standing ovation, an uncommon occurrence at a scientific meeting. In 2017, with other leaders from the project, Abdool Karim edited The CAPRISA Clinical Trials: HIV Treatment and Prevention.

Since this project, Abdool Karim has continued to research and publish writing about HIV/AIDS in South Africa. She published the book HIV/AIDS in South Africa with her husband and research collaborator Salim 'Slim' Abdool Karim in 2005, with the second edition published in 2010. In 2015, she co-edited the sixth edition of the Oxford Textbook of Global Public Health. In 2017 she was appointed by the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) as the UNAIDS Special Ambassador for Adolescents and HIV.

Outside of her research in HIV and AIDS, Abdool Karim has also worked to improve education and training for scientists in South Africa and served as an advocate for women in science. Through the Columbia University-Southern African Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Programme, Abdool Karim has worked to train over 600 scientists in the region since 1998.

In the 1990s, South Africa was gripped by an HIV epidemic. During this time, Abdool Karim began her socio-behavioural studies in relation to HIV, in South Africa. She conducted population-based surveys, aiming to the understand the spread of the epidemic in women, as well as researching on additional factors such as gender, age, and migration. In 1992, Abdool Karim et al. published a paper, highlighting that women were more vulnerable to the HIV infection. The study also found a correlation between migration and HIV. This correlation was found to be particularly emphasized among men. During the 1990s, Abdool Karim conducted numerous studies and wrote a handful of papers, studying the infection and highlighting the different groups who were more at risk to the disease.

Quarraisha Abdool Karim (born 28 March 1960) is a South African epidemiologist, known for her many contributions to AIDS research. She is the Associate Scientific Director of the AIDS research center, CAPRISA, a professor in Clinical Epidemiology at Columbia University, and an honorary professor in Public Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Professor Abdool Karim is also a visiting scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. She was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Johannesburg. She is also the vice-president of the African Academy of Sciences and Foreign Associate Member of the Institute of Medicine (IoM) of the National Academies.

Abdool Karim was born in Tongaat in South Africa in 1960. She attended Vishwaroop state-aided school, Victoria school, and Tongaat high school. She cites her grandmother and parents as some of her mentors, instilling in her a passion for knowledge. In 1981, she graduated with a bachelor of science from the University of Durban-Westville. Abdool Karim then moved on to the University of Witwatersrand, gaining a bachelor of science honours degree in Biochemistry. For her master's degree, Abdool Karim moved to the United States, gaining her master's in Parasitology in 1988, from Columbia University. In 2000, she completed her PhD in Medicine from the University of Natal, in South Africa.