Dr Keeton is a Senior Research Scientist and viral immunologist based in the Division of Medical Virology at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Her initial training was in basic immunology with a particular interest in infectious diseases affecting Sub-Saharan Africa. She completed her PhD which focused on the role of TNF and TNF receptors in host immune protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) at the UCT in 2009 and did subsequent postdoctoral and early career research on the role of malarial co-infections on M.tb vaccine immunogenicity and efficacy.  She has 20 years of experience in mouse models of infectious diseases including tuberculosis and malaria and hold an authorization from the South African Veterinary Council for the use of animals in research. In 2019 she made a change to clinical research where the focus was initially on HIV/TB coinfection. After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, her research focus switched almost exclusively to COVID-19 research, analyzing antibody and T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination. She now leads the preclinical work within the Cellular Immunology Platform, a hub established for immunogenicity testing of vaccines for epidemic and pandemic viruses.