Dr. Anna-Ursula Happel is a Senior Research officer at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa. She completed a PhD in Medical Virology at UCT. Her work involves understanding interactions between bacterial and viral microbiota in the female genital tract and subsequent effects on risk of preterm birth in women with HIV, for which she received an EDCTP Career Development Fellowship in poverty-related diseases and child and adolescent health. Ultimately, her research works toward designing microbiome-based diagnostics and biotherapeutics for women and infant health.