Dr Marta Nunes is a Reader, Associate Professor, at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics (Wits-VIDA) Research Unit. Marta developed her PhD thesis work at the Department of Neurology & Neuroscience, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, USA and obtained her PhD from the University of Lisbon, Medical College, Lisbon, Portugal in January 2004. After that at the Institut Pasteur, in Paris, France, during her EMBO and Human Frontiers post-doctoral fellowships, Marta was involved in several projects aimed at understanding the cell biology of Plasmodium falciparum and to identify molecular candidates for malaria vaccines for pregnant women. She moved to South Africa in 2009. The focus of her research with Wits VIDA has been focused on reducing under-5 childhood morbidity and mortality from leading causes of death, including the evaluation of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in high HIV-burden settings, clinical and molecular epidemiology of respiratory viral associated-pneumonia. To approach the problem of infant morbidity and mortality related to infections she is exploring the potential of intervening through vaccination of pregnant women to protect the women and their babies against infections. Marta is also conducting large surveillance studies of hospital admissions related to SARS-COV-2, Influenza and RSV.