Clare Cutland is the Scientific Coordinator of the African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise (Alive) consortium, which is led by co-directors Professors Helen Rees (Wits RHI) and Shabir Madhi (VIDA/ RMPRU). ALIVE was selected as the flagship entity for the University of the Witwatersrand in 2016, and aims to create African expertise and leadership in vaccinology training, research and advocacy. She has established and coordinates the MSc(Med) in the field of vaccinology at Wits, and the 10-day African advanced vaccinology short course.
Prior to her appointment in ALIVE (Nov 2018), she was a research medical officer and subsequently the deputy director of the Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit (RMPRU, now Wits-VIDA), based at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital (CHBAH), Soweto, South Africa (2000-2018).
She was an investigator on numerous phase I, II and III paediatric and maternal vaccine trials and principal investigator on a phase II paediatric measles vaccine trial, a phase III quadrivalent influenza vaccine trial in children and a phase III maternal influenza immunization trial in HIV-positive women.
Clare Cutland was the clinical lead for several large grant-funded neonatal sepsis prevention (PoPS, sepsis surveillance) and maternal immunization studies (influenza, Streptococcus agalactiae / Group B streptococcus sero-correlate of protection) and an investigator on numerous maternal immunization trials (GBS, RSV), and has published on challenges and lessons learnt in maternal immunization trials. She is national coordinator for the Oxford-AZ COVID-19 vaccine trial in South Africa (April 2020 – current), being led by Shabir Madhi, and is a sub-investigator on Oxford-Astra Zeneca- and Novavax COVID-19 vaccine trials
She was involved in the GAIA Brighton collaboration definition working groups (2014-2016), and was elected as a member of the scientific board of the Brighton collaboration in 2018 (to present). She is a member of the Wits Institutional biosafety committee and working group for maternal COVID-19 vaccines.
She is author or co-author on over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles.