Lisa du Toit

Lisa Claire du Toit, B.Pharm (cum laude), M.Pharm (cum laude), PhD (Wits) is a Personal Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Assistant Director of the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform Research Unit (WADDP) in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Prof. du Toit is internationally recognized as a global pharmaceutical scientist developing advanced drug delivery technologies and tissue regenerative systems for non-communicable and communicable diseases, possessing local and global pertinence. Prof. du Toit has over 220 publications, 14 being first author publications which have been published in high impact factor, reputable ISI recognised journals, with most of these journals falling within the first quartile in Pharmaceutical Sciences. She has an h-index of 44 (Scopus), with over with 6000 citations. She has been included in Stanford’s World Top 2% Scientists list, and was listed among the Top 5 in the School of Therapeutic Sciences. This list assessed citation impact in the year 2019, and created a dataset through evaluation of citation indicators, including h-index, co-authorship, and a composite indicator for career-long impact. She recently received her C1 rating from the National Research Foundation of South Africa highlighting her status as an established researcher with considerable international recognition. Her latest research outputs have been published in top-ranking impact factor journals such as Pharmaceutical Research, which have established her globally as an aspiring leader in ocular drug delivery, specifically ocular nanosystems. In addition to these publications, Prof. du Toit is the first author of 5 book chapters and has co-authored a number of editorials, books or chapters in books. These outputs are anticipated to be widely read and cited by researchers in Pharmaceutical Sciences globally. She is currently the primary editor of a book in her areas of expertise entitled ‘Advanced 3D-Printed Systems and Nanosystems for Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering’ published by Elsevier in 2020. Prof. du Toit has also garnered commendation at international conferences, presenting at 13 International Conferences. As a Senior Researcher of the WADDP, Prof. du Toit supervises PhD and Master’s students, and has graduated 13 PhD student and 24 Master’s students. Prof. du Toit is an inventor on 9 granted patents and on a number of PCT applications filed internationally. Those is which she is principal inventor include: ‘A heterogeneously configured multiparticulate gastrointestinal drug delivery system’, which was granted in South Africa in 2008 (SA Patent # 2007/10786) and is in the PCT stages internationally and ‘A drug delivery device’, where the PCT has been filed in the US, Europe, China, ARIPO, India, Brazil and South Africa. These represent highly innovative research concepts. It is evident that she is co-investigator on a number of other patents as she has been awarded the Wits Innovators Forum Prolific Inventor Award for having disclosed more than five inventions. In 2014, owing to Prof. du Toit’s extensive knowledge and involvement in the preparation of patents, she was recruited as an IP Scout @ Wits by Wits Enterprise, the Technology Transfer Office of the University of the Witwatersrand, where she was involved in the identification of potential intellectual property in the university’s Faculty of Health Sciences. Prof. du Toit has been awarded a Friedel Sellschop Award in 2014 which recognizes and supports exceptional young researchers as well as a Claude Leon Foundation Merit Award in 2014 for emerging researchers. In 2014, Prof. du Toit was inducted as a member of the South African Young Academy of Scientists (SAYAS), based on academic merit and demonstration of advancement of the field of Science. Prof. du Toit was short-listed as a finalist for the 2014/15 NSTF-BHP Billiton Award by the National Science and Technology Forum in the Category: T W Kambule Awards: Emerging researchers. She was recently announced as a second runner-up in the Women in Science Awards, 2015, in the category in the Distinguished Young Women Researchers Category. Prof. du Toit has consequently been invited to speak at the Women in Science 2015 conference hosted by AMC International. In 2019, Prof. du Toit received the TWAS Young Affiliateship, which is an honour given to only up to 25 developing-nation researchers with at least 10 international publications demonstrating potential for a high-impact career. In 2020, Prof. du Toit was short-listed as a finalist for the 2019/2020 NSTF-South32 Awards in the category: TW Kambule-NSTF Award: Emerging Researcher. Recently in 2021, she was elected as the Vice President of the South Africa Chapter of the Controlled Release Society (CRS), which is a pertinent leadership role. She was also appointed as the international Director of the CRS Educate Program in 2021.