Elise Bonnet

I come from a very academically driven family. My maternal grandparents both taught
at the same university. My grandfather was a professor in entomology and my grandmother taught
mathematics for undergraduates. My mother has a doctorate in organic chemistry and is a senior
lecturer at a university. My parents encouraged my siblings and I to broaden our knowledge and fed our
curiosities. As a result, I became very interested in doing research in my university days.

I briefly considered following in my father’s footsteps to become a medical doctor but felt the
opportunities for research would be limited. I started my university journey as an undergraduate with a
bachelor’s in science focusing on Zoology. First year subjects that were covered included biology,
physics, calculus, and chemistry. In second and third year, we did biochemistry, zoology, and
microbiology. At this point my interest was piqued by microorganisms and I wanted to know more about
this world I discovered. How can one not be interested in this strange micro-world and its occupants?

Other than my academic inclinations, I feel I have personality traits which will assist me in my research and clinical path. As an extrovert, I am an outgoing person, socially inclined and I thrive in sharing knowledge. I am an assertive, hard-working individual. I am not above asking for help when needed, working with others
to solve problems, and using outside sources for ideas and inspiration. I have good communication skills and do well both in individual and team research groups. 

After completing my masters in medical virology I was appointed as a research assistant at the Centre for Viral Zoonoses, University of Pretoria, South Africa. During the 3 years of working at the CVZ I gained knowledge on the molecular and serological aspects of alphaviruses. I was exposed to animal and human diagnostic systems which included work such as processing of data and samples, extraction of RNA under BSL-3 conditions, PCR screening of alphaviruses, flaviviruses and orthobunyaviruses, gel electrophoresis, and administrative work including generating of medical reports. In addition, I have experience in developing and optimising conventional PCR and qPCRs, viral titrations, cell culture preparation and in vitro culturing of viruses, developing of IgG and IgM ELISAs, and micro-neutralization assays.

In June 2022 I started working as a sales representative at Lasec. I was responsible for selling laboratory products and meeting the customers needs. In September 2022, I was promoted to a Biotechnology Application Specialist role, and currently I amresponsible for implementing, training, onboarding, and delivering services to the customers.  My main focus is on the Life Science Portfolio of Bio-Rad. 

In my Master’s degree  I successfully developed a reverse-transcriptase recombinase polymerase amplification (RT-RPA) to detect West Nile virus and Wesselsbron virus known to occur in South Africa. In January 2022, I published my first article, “Rapid reverse Transcriptase Recombinant Polymerase amplification assay for flaviviruses using non-infectious in vitro transcribed RNA as possible controls”, in the Journal of Virological Methods.