Ruan Spies
Contact information
Research groups
SUPERVISORS
Colleges
Ruan Spies
DPhil Student
EDUCATION
- MSc Global Health Science and Epidemiology, University of Oxford 2023
- Diploma in HIV Management, Colleges of Medicine of South Africa 2022
- Medicine (MBChB), University of Cape Town 2019
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
- Community Service Medical Officer (Senior House Officer), New Somerset Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa Jan 2022– Oct 2022
- Intern Medical Doctor (Foundation Year equivalent), Livingstone Hospital Complex, Gqeberha, South Africa Jan 2020 – Dec 2021
THESIS
- How (and why) do people in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam get drug-resistant tuberculosis?
People with drug-resistant TB can have acquired their disease in one of two ways: from others through direct transmission or through the selection of drug resistance mutations while receiving first-line TB therapy. Empiric evidence describing the relative contributions of each mechanism to the current burden of drug-resistant in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam is lacking.
My project uses Mycobacterium tuberculosis whole genome sequencing to describe TB transmission in Ho Chi Minh City and to estimate the relative contributions of transmitted and selected resistance to drug-resistant TB in the city. This may have important implications for public health TB control measures. I am supported by a Rhodes Scholarship.
Recent publications
Transmission of rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam: a prospective genomic epidemiology study
Preprint
Spies R. et al, (2026)
Effectiveness of stigma reduction interventions and outbreak response adaptations in infectious disease outbreaks: a systematic review
Journal article
Paterson A. et al, (2026), Frontiers in Public Health, 14
Characterizing the performance of an antibiotic resistance prediction tool, gnomonicus, using a diverse test set of 2,663 Mycobacterium tuberculosis samples
Journal article
Westhead J. et al, (2025), Microbial Genomics, 11
Evaluating 12 automated, whole-genome sequencing analysis pipelines for Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex: a comparative study
Journal article
Spies R. et al, (2025), The Lancet Microbe, 6, 101210 - 101210
Evaluating twelve automated Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex whole genome sequencing analysis pipelines: a comparative study
Journal article
Spies R. et al, (2025), The Lancet Microbe