Andreas Diacon
Professor of Physiology and Principal Specialist in Pulmonology at the University of Stellenbosch and Tygerberg Academic Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa.
Session: “Breakthroughs from Around the World”
March 10, 2020
17:00 – 18:00
Andreas Diacon is a Professor of Physiology and Principal Specialist in Pulmonology at the University of Stellenbosch and Tygerberg Academic Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa. He received his MD from the University of Zürich, Switzerland, in 1987, specialized in Internal Medicine and Pulmonology, and earned a PhD from Stellenbosch University in 2007. Andreas Diacon developed an early interest in tuberculosis during training in a former TB sanatorium in Davos in the Swiss Alps, also named the “magic mountain”. After migrating to South Africa he started his own anti-tuberculosis drug research. He is the founder and CEO of TASK, an organisation specialising in clinical studies with novel TB treatments, vaccines and diagnostics. Many novel compounds have since been tested at TASK research sites. His main research interests now lie in the techniques and clinical methods for the evaluation of novel anti-tuberculosis agents. He is engaged in various research collaborations within South Africa and with the USA and Europe. Recently Andreas Diacon was named as one of Bill Gates’s Heroes in the Field through his contributions and continuing search for better treatment solutions for tuberculosis.