Gray and Woolf elected 2026 Fellows of the Royal Society
- Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ Alumni Relations
Two Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ graduates credit their alma mater for sparking research interests as they join the ranks of a prestigious, centuries-old scientific academy.
Two Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ alumni have been elected among the 2026 Fellows of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of sciences and one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious scientific institutions.
On 27 May 2026 Professor Glenda Gray (MBBCh 1986) and Professor Clifford Woolf (BSc 1972, MBBCh 1977, and PhD 1979) were named in the 2026 cohort of more than 90 researchers from across the globe elected to the Fellowship, which counts Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Dorothy Hodgkin among its historic members.
Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, said contributions from the new cohort of fellows “reflect the highest standards of scientific endeavour. Whether advancing our understanding of vaccines or exploring the transformative potential of mathematics and computation, their work exemplifies the enduring value of curiosity, creativity, and rigorous inquiry.”
Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ Alumni Relations spoke to both scientists, who reflected on the significance of the award, how their lifelong research interests began in hospitals around Johannesburg, and the mentors and memories that shaped their journeys.
Professor Glenda Gray
Prof Gray is a well-known trained paediatrician and clinician scientist who has made pioneering contributions towards the prevention of HIV-1 transmission in infants, supported interventions to prevent HIV in women through HIV vaccinology and antiretroviral prophylaxis, and led COVID-19 vaccine research, establishing the effectiveness and safety of COVID vaccines in South Africa. She was the first female president/CEO of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).
“It’s a real great honour to receive this recognition from the Royal Society for the research I have done in HIV vaccines, COVID-19 and HIV prevention in general. The path to find a successful HIV vaccine has been a long and hard one, and one that I hope to be involved in until we hit a break-through,” she said.
“Being acknowledged in the field of HIV vaccines, where progress is slow and painful, is important for me, as well as any young person contemplating a career in this area…This Fellowship is about the value of team science and working with gifted researchers both in South Africa and globally who work together to move the needle. I am grateful to be acknowledged by my peers and both inspired and humbled by the enormous contributions other Fellows have made to the world.”
She said when starting her career as a paediatrician she never ever thought about science, but her interest was sparked by the burden of HIV deaths in infants, children and young pregnant women. At the Chris Hani Academic Hospital in Soweto she “learned the power of evidence and how evidence can change policy and clinical practice, how science can directly improve life.
“I joined a multidisciplinary team to do HIV vaccine research and development, from preclinical to the clinic, and my love for HIV vaccines was then birthed, and I have been obsessed since then.
“My tenure as the SAMRC president allowed me to get involved in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the groundwork done before, allowed for the pivot and the ability to translate our skills to COVID-19. All the practice paid off and the teams created in South Africa allowed us to respond to the pandemic that benefitted South Africa.”
She said that she has many favourite memories of Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½. “Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ has always supported my career in science. But Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ was the institution that grounded me in the context in which we practice medicine in South Africa, politicised me and taught me that all who need care in our country deserve dignity and respect. It’s a lesson I bring into the clinical research arena; often it’s the participants and patients that teach you the most about what is truly important.”
Professor Clifford Woolf
Professor Woolf, who is director of the Neurobiology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor of neurology and neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, said: “Although I entered Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ Medical School from high school with a view to becoming a clinician it was my exposure to biomedical science when I did a BSc and BSc Hons in the Physiology Department under the chairmanship of Prof Clive Rosendorff (BSc 1958, BSc Hons 1959, MBBCh 1962, DSc Med 1977) that made me realise this was exactly what I wished to devote my professional life to, and so I have.”
He said that the Fellowship was “a very nice recognition of the impact and novelty of my neuroscience research, with a particular focus on pain.”
This interest was sparked while working in a post-surgical ward in the Johannesburg General Hospital as a medical student. Most of the patients were in intense pain and he was told it was normal to expect that postoperatively.
“That led me to conduct a PhD on developing analgesia though activating inhibitory neural circuits under the supervision of Professor Duncan Mitchell (BSc 1962, BSc Hons 1964, MSc 1967, PhD 1972, DSc honoris causa 2012) while I completed my medical degree. I then continued research into pain mechanisms and new translational approaches, first at University College London and then at Harvard Medical School.”
His research is devoted to investigating how functional, chemical, and structural plasticity of neurons is involved in both normal adaptive functions of the nervous system and in maladaptive changes that contribute to neurological diseases. His major discoveries are central sensitisation as a driver of pain, pre-emptive analgesia, how to selectively inhibit nociceptors, and utilisation of stem cell-derived human neurons to model disease and identify novel therapeutics.
He has received a Gill Distinguished Scientist award and Reeve-Irvine medal and was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
Royal Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ies
These two scientists follow in the footsteps of many other Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½ies, who in their lifetime were elected as Fellows of one of the world’s most prestigious scientific academies including: Professors Robert Broom, Phillip Tobias, David Pettifor, Lewis Wolpert, Frank Nabarro, Henry Selby Hele-Shaw, Sir Basil Schonland, Sir David King and Professors Bernard Fanaroff, David Epstein, Peter Sarnak, John Burland, David Mayne, Roger Sheldon, Graham Hutchings, Zeblon Vilakazi and Nobel prize-winners Sir Sydney Brenner and Sir Aaron Klug.
Being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) is prestigious, given that there are only about 1 700 current Fellows and Foreign Members of the Royal Society, and only 8 000 Fellows since its inception in 1660, including around 85 Nobel Laureates.
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