Glenda Gray trained as a medical doctor and paediatrician at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and co-founded and led the internationally renowned Perinatal HIV Research Unit, based at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. Professor Gray is an "A"-rated scientist by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. She has also been awarded the “Hero of Medicine” award by the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care for work done in the field of HIV treatment in children and adults. Moreover, she is president of the South African Medical Research Council. 

In 2009 Professor Gray and James McIntyre received the N’Galy-Mann lectureship in recognition of their HIV research contribution in South Africa. In June 2012 she received a DSc (honoris causa) from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, for her work in the field of mother-to--child transmission of HIV. She was admitted into the American Academy of Microbiology in 2012. In 2013 she received South Africa's highest honour, the Order of Mapungubwe, granted by the country's president.