College of Health Sciences

BIOSKETCH
Professor Bongani Nkambule was born in Ermelo, Mpumalanga, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Hematological Pathology obtained in 2015 (Stellenbosch University, South Africa), he is a Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) registered Medical Biological Scientist in the discipline of Haematology (Independent Practice), and previously served as the Academic Leader of Research in the school of Laboratory Medicine and Medical Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Durban, South Africa.Professor Nkambule has received several prestigious fellowships during his tenure at UKZN. These include the UKZN Fogarty international Center (FIC)-funded Developing Research, Innovation, Localisation and Leadership in South Africa (DRILL) fellowship (2016-2021), a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Senior Research Fellowship (2021-2023) at the world’s leading Laboratory of Hemostasis and Platelet Biology, National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the Framingham Heart Study, USA.Nkambule is the 2023 recipient of the prestigious UKZN Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award, an honour bestowed annually on a leading researcher whose work has garnered substantial academic and international impact. In just over eight years, he has authored an impressive 109 peer-reviewed publications and has made ground-breaking contributions, including publishing the largest study to date on dyslipidemia and platelet function.He has received several research awards including the 2019 School of Laboratory Medicine and Medical Sciences Top-performing Senior Lecturer award (Research Productivity) and the UKZN Top 10 Young Researcher Award in 2021.   He has graduated over seven Doctoral students and 12 Masters students in the past six years (2018-2024). He is currently the main supervisor of 11 postgraduate students (five doctoral candidates and six Master’s students).Professor Nkambule is also Principal Investigator (PI) on several multi-disciplinary projects which have attracted over worth over R6million of local grant funding. He is currently the PI on a multinational population-based study on platelet function which is funded by the National Institutes of Health, which aims to provide the largest dataset on platelet traits in a Sub-Saharan Africa population.The primary focus of Professor Nkambule’s laboratory at Westville campus is on immunohaematology, platelet function and immune thrombosis in infectious disease and malignancies.