Professor Makgoba is the former vice-chancellor and principal of the University of KwaZulu-Natal and an internationally recognised molecular immunologist. He is also former deputy vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand. Makgoba received an MBChB degree from the University of Natal Medical School in 1976 with merit. In 1979 he was named the first black Nuffield Dominion Fellow to the University of Oxford where he completed his DPhil degree in human immunogenetics in 1983 under Professor Sir Andrew McMichael.

He went on to become the first senior registrar to fellow expatriate South African and President of Royal College of Physicians of London, Sir Raymond Hoffenberg, in 1983. He was Reader in Molecular Endocrinology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School London between 1990 and 1994.

He was the first black South African to be selected to the prestigious National Institute of Health's Fogarty Visiting Programme in the late 1980s. Makgoba was appointed Chairperson of the Medical Research Council Board (1995-1998) and thereafter served as President of the Medical Research Council between 1999 and 2002.

He was involved in developing South Africa's AIDS strategy and the SA AIDS Vaccine Initiative. He is a recipient of the Order of Mapungubwe. In 2016, he was appointed as the country’s first health ombudsman.