By KAREN MILLER
Valerie (Val) Mizrahi is busier than ever, even though she was required by university regulations to retire at 65.
She is now Professor Emerita at UCT; a Senior Scholar at the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, the major postgraduate research institute she once led at UCT; and remains deeply involved in research development, both here and internationally.
Her latest honour is election as an international member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, one of the world’s most prestigious scientific institutions. It joins election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of the UK in 2023 and membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2025. They are remarkable distinctions, although one suspects Val Mizrahi herself is more interested in the next scientific question than the last honour.
Science is her driving force: she was the chemistry student inspired by an exceptional teacher who developed into the chemist who has spent more than three decades pursuing tuberculosis (TB), and the internationally acclaimed researcher flying around the world building scientific networks.
For more than thirty years tuberculosis has been the great scientific question of her life. In South Africa, where TB remains one of our leading causes of death, her research has helped transform our understanding of the bacterium that causes this disease and contributed to the development of new approaches to treatment. She has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of drug-resistant tuberculosis, one of the most pressing public health challenges of our time.
After working in the United States, Val returned to South Africa in 1989, excited by the groundbreaking work being done in HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases and by the opportunities opening up in tuberculosis research. Given the freedom to follow her scientific curiosity, she worked at the SA Institute of Medical Research and built a world-class TB research programme at Wits University and the National Health Laboratory Service before moving to UCT in 2011 to lead the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine.
Science, for Val Mizrahi, has never been a solitary pursuit. It is about individual curiosity, certainly, but it is equally about collaboration. She speaks often of “social capital”, the networks of relationships that make good science possible. Scientific excellence, she believes, depends upon bringing talented people together, building capacity and creating opportunities for younger scientists to flourish.
Colleagues at Wits affectionately gave her the nickname, ’the Rottweiler’. This perfectly captures both her determination and her refusal to let go of scientific problems. She cheerfully admits to being hyper-competitive and that she cannot switch off completely from her work. Retirement, therefore, was probably doomed from the outset.
She proudly proclaims that her background is “100% Sephardi”. Three of her grandparents came from the island of Rhodes and one from Izmir in Turkey. Economic circumstances brought them to Rhodesia in the 1920s to begin their lives again, while other members of the family who remained behind were murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. Her admiration of their courage and tenacity to persevere against the odds is behind her own drive to face the insurmountable health issues that South Africa faces.
She grew up with the privilege of knowing all four grandparents, listening to them speaking Ladino, and having remarkable parents, who taught her the importance of family and community. Today there is a heartfelt regret that she didn’t ask more questions about her family’s history and lived experiences. “I wish I had found out more,” she says. Curiosity, she reflects, has shaped both her personal and scientific life.
She speaks warmly of the mentors who have guided her, particularly Professors Solly Benatar and Siamon Gordon. Her greatest mentor, however, is her mother, whose own battle with tuberculosis proved a defining moment for the family. It is therefore no surprise that mentorship occupies such an important place in Val’s own life. Helping younger scientists build the networks and collaborations that will sustain their careers matters deeply to her.
She is also a passionate advocate for women in science. Although she describes herself as “an aberration in my time”, she never saw herself primarily as a woman scientist, simply as a scientist. Family, she insists, comes first. When her two daughters were young, she left work early in the afternoons to be with them and has enabled younger women in her group to do likewise.
Although she is not a medical doctor and does not treat patients herself, her work extends far beyond the laboratory. She mentors young scientists, and promotes organisations such as the Khayelitsha-based Eh!woza, which brings together biomedical researchers and young people from communities affected by HIV and tuberculosis. “The bacterium does not carry a passport,” she says. Science and health, for her, transcend borders and ideology.
She reads “voraciously”, treasures quiet time alone and walks to recharge. She draws inspiration from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: “There is a difference between optimism and hope. Optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the belief that if we work hard enough together we can make things better.” It is difficult to imagine a motivation more perfectly aligned with both her science and her worldview.
Asked what legacy she hopes to leave, Val Mizrahi’s answer is immediate. It is “not science but people”. For someone newly elected to one of the world’s most distinguished scientific academies, that may be the most revealing answer of all.
