Dr Lebu Taleli

Lebu received his BSc in Chemical Technology from the National University of Lesotho, Southern Africa. He joined the Radiopharmaceuticals and Radiochemicals Research and Development Division at the iThemba LABS in Cape Town, South Africa in 2006.

His R&D work in nuclear medicine programmes involved organic synthesis and isotopic labelling methods of SPECT radiopharmaceuticals used for clinical imaging of several tumours. The radiolabelling aspect of his work focused on the radionuclidic and radiochemical purity of 123I-mIBG. He also worked with the Biomedical Radiation Division to investigate the use of radiolabelled nucleoside analogues as potential substrates for human thymidine kinases.

In 2010, he spent time at the CSIR Biosciences in Pretoria, South Africa under the Southern Africa Network for Biosciences (SANBio-NEPAD) flagship initiative project. He was involved in isolation, bioprospecting and characterisation of natural product medicines used to treat HIV/AIDS and/or opportunistic infections.
In 2012, he returned to Cape Town to pursued MSc and PhD at the Stellenbosch University. His PhD focused on the synthesis of polymer-bound kinase inhibitors as anti-tumour agents. He completed his PhD in Dec 2017 under a joined supervision of Prof Bert Klumperman and Prof Willem van Otterlo. Lebu joined H3D in 2018 as a postdoctoral research fellow and is now working as an investigator in TB medicinal chemistry.