Dr Al Leslie’s work is devoted to understanding the relationship between HIV and its host, focussing on immune cells’ earliest response to the pathogen. Recently, he’s expanded those studies to include the tuberculosis-causing bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Al initially trained in agricultural science. He went on to do a PhD in HIV Immunology at Oxford University after witnessing first-hand the devastation wrought by HIV in the late 1990s while he was working in Malawi. Al took up a position as an Investigator at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB-HIV in 2012. He is a member of AHRI Faculty, where his lab works to understand how human cells respond to infection with HIV and tuberculosis.