Affiliation: Provincial Laboratory for Public Health and the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Alberta

Dr. Prenilla Naidu is a Medical Microbiologist at the Provincial Laboratory for Public Health in Alberta, Canada, and an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Alberta.

She received her MD from Natal University, in South Africa and subsequently trained and worked in Paediatrics in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Since her arrival in Canada in 1999, she worked in general practice, as a consultant at the STI Clinic and at the inner-city Health Centre in Edmonton, before obtaining her Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada qualifications in Medical Microbiology and Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the University of Glasgow, UK.

Her research interests in sexually transmitted infections (STI) started in 1998 during her first medical microbiology residency in South Africa when she managed an STI clinic in a rural village and conducted research studies to direct the National STI Treatment Guidelines. She continues her research in this area with ongoing projects, locally, nationally and international collaborations, on syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, mycoplasma and trichomonas infections. She was the STI lead at the Provincial Laboratory and served in numerous leadership roles. She has participated in the development of various infectious disease treatment and diagnostic guidelines at provincial and national levels and, currently, as co-chair of the national Canadian Public Health Laboratory Network Syphilis Diagnostic Working Group, is involved in updating the national syphilis testing and diagnostic guidelines. She is also integrally involved in the Medical Microbiology Residency Training Program at the University of Alberta.