Professor Karen Barnes

Karen I Barnes is a professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Cape Town (UCT), with research interests focusing on improving the treatment of malaria. Karen has over 25 years of experience in malaria treatment research and policy making nationally, regionally and internationally. Her research interests focus on translational research on the clinical pharmacology of antimalarials in order to inform malaria treatment policy and practice – including the comprehensive evaluation of changes in treatment policy and how these impact on antimalarial resistance; optimising dosing in vulnerable populations (young children, pregnant women and patients with HIV/AIDS or malnutrition) in order to delay drug resistance; and the clinical development of much-needed novel antimalarials. Other areas of interest include equitable data sharing and how best to teach rational pharmacotherapy. 

Professor Barnes is the Founding Director of the MRC Collaborating Centre for Optimising Antimalarial Therapy (CCOAT). She is co-chair of the South African Malaria Elimination Committee and leads both the Pharmacology Scientific Group and the African regional hub of the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN). She has been a member of the WHO Guidelines Development Group on Malaria Chemotherapy for over a decade. Her current work is focused on tackling the threat of drug-resistant malaria in Africa, where she coordinates the Mitigating Antimalarial Resistance Consortium for Southern and East Africa (MARC SE-Africa). 

Karen studied medicine and specialized in Clinical Pharmacology at UCT. Immediately after South Africa’s first democratic elections, she returned to South Africa from the Netherlands and has worked in UCT’s Division of Clinical Pharmacology since then. She previously served as Deputy Dean for Research in UCT’s Faculty of Health Sciences and has been an honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford since 2012.