About
Marie-Louise Newell is a medically-trained Epidemiologist; her research has focussed on maternal and child health, particularly infections and transmission from mother-to-child.
At the University College London Institute of Child Health, she led a European cohort of HIV-infected pregnant women and their children; throughout her career she has been involved in research in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Between late 2005 and late 2013, she lived in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa as Director of the Wellcome Trust-funded Africa Centre for Health & Population Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal where she initiated a broad innovative programme of research addressing the impact of HIV infection at a population and individual level.
With the SA Department of Health, she established a large, successful HIV treatment and care programme, which was shown to substantially reduce adult and child mortality, and HIV incidence. She initiated a large Treatment-as-Prevention cluster randomised trial in this rural area to evaluate the impact of early HIV treatment on HIV incidence.
Her interest in infections in pregnant women and their children more recently focussed on the mid- and longer term implications of exposure to HIV infection and treatment for the woman and her child.
She joined the University of Southampton in mid-2013, where she initiated the Global Health Research Institute, and an NIHR-funded Global Health network on nutrition during pregnancy and early childhood.