Patience Mthunzi-Kufa (Patience Mthunzi) was born on May 2, 1976, in
Orlando, Soweto.[1] She attended Reasöma Secondary School and enrolled for bachelor's degree in
Psychology.[1] She became interested in biological science, and switched majors, graduating from
Rand Afrikaans University in 1999.[2] At the same institution, she completed postgraduate degrees in Biochemistry.[2] She cites her aunt as inspiration: a teacher, and the only member of her family to complete a master's degree.[3]
Mthunzi began to work for the National Laser Centre in the
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, where she set up a functional cell-culture facility.[4] Whilst at a conference in
San Diego, Mthunzi-Kufa saw a presentation on
optical tweezers which made her consider a career in
biophotonics. It was not possible to study this in South Africa, so she moved to
University of St Andrews, where she was the first South African PhD student in the discipline.[5] She earned her PhD in 2010, "Optical sorting and photo-transfection of mammalian cells".[6] She was a member of the
SPIE students chapter in St Andrews.[7]
In 2015, Mthunzi was appointed a
TED Fellow.[11] Her TED talk, Could we cure HIV with lasers?, has been viewed over one million times.[12] She used the opportunity to discuss wish to translate her research from petri dishes to human testing.[13][14] Her talk was well received by the audience in Vancouver and scientists all over the world.[15][16][17]
Mthunzi is concerned about the brain drain of African scientists out of South Africa.[18][5] In 2014 she spoke at Girlpower UNISA.[19] In 2016 she appeared on
SABC 2Visionaries' Lounge.[20] She has also appeared on Moves and Shakers.[21] She was featured on
CNBC Africa.[22] She is a contributor to Talking Heads, an African speakers platform for change-makers.[23]
Mthunzi is co-chair of the South African Young Academy of Science.[24][25] She is helping the Young African Scientists in Europe (YASE) with their 2018 meeting, dedicated to African early career researchers.[26]
^Optical sorting and photo-transfection of mammalian cells (Thesis). Dholakia, Kishan, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa, University of St Andrews. University of St Andrews. 30 November 2010.
hdl:
10023/1254.{{
cite thesis}}: CS1 maint: others (
link)