Our Director, Prof Trindade, has earned a distinguished place in South Africa’s most prestigious science community as an ASSAf member.

Annually the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) honours the country’s most outstanding scholars by electing them as members of the Academy. This singular honour recognises scholastic achievement across the spectrum of academic disciplines. Members constitute the core asset of the Academy and give of their time and expertise voluntarily in the service of society. on 9 November 2023 Prof. Trindade was inducted into the academy in recognition of her work in the field of microbial genomics at a gala dinner. You can watch the inauguration ceremony at the link below:

https://tinyurl.com/yrybchtb

UWC has celebrated this prestigious recognition which demonstrates it’s influence in enhancing the quality, competitiveness and internationalisation of UWC research and students:

https://www.uwc.ac.za/news-and-announcements/news/uwc-scholar-awarded-prestigious-assaf-membership

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Improving life in water and on land: investigating sustainable biosurfactants  

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IMBM: interest to host a Postdoc on an exciting new bacterial WGS initiative in 2024

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New 18-month Postdoc position available at the IMBM

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IMBM Biobank Continues to grow after it earns Spot as One of Seven National Biobanks

http://tinyurl.com/5b7e6sd9

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Prof Marla Trindade speaks during a press conference held at the “In my skin” exhibition presented by L’Oreal in Paris about the future of microbiome research (https://tinyurl.com/y6bff4d9)

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IMBM awarded two grants: SA-Germany and SA-France

IMBM was awarded two bilateral grants. One program is aimed at furthering work on a biosurfactant produced by an enzyme identified through screening of metagenomic libraries (SA-Germany; Dr. Anita Burger). The second program (SA-France; Prof Marla Trindade) is to develop phage-based therapies targeting the entomopathogenic bacterium Paenibacillus larvae responsible for American Foulbrood disease affecting honeybees as well as knocking out the plant pathogenic bacterium (Xylella fastidiosa) found on olive trees. Both programs will see researchers from their respective countries exchange for a period of two months to perform either sampling for phages (SA-France) or training (SA-Germany) with respect to construction and screening of metagenomic libraries and characterization of biosurfactants. Both programs are set to start early in 2017.

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IMBM student exchange: University of Aberdeen

As part of the Ocean Medicines program, Jatro Kulani Mhlongo one of the IMBM PhD students went on a four month exchange to the University of Aberdeen (Marine Biodiscorvery centre) in Scotland. The main purpose of the exchange was to learn about purification and structure elucidation of natural products. A number of techniques and processes were presented during the course of the exchange program such as solid phase extraction (SPE), Liquid–liquid partitioning, Size exclusion liquid chromatography, reverse phase high pressure liquid column chromatography (HPLC), nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), and High resolution mass spectroscopy (HRMS). Data processing software training such as the use of Mestrenova and Xcalibur for processing of NMR and HRMS data, which are essential for successful structural elucidation of organic compounds, was also provided. Kulani was further fortunate enough to attend two workshops on NMR for structural elucidation and HPLC for the purification of chiral compounds during his stay there.

Exchange programs such as these enable the transfer of expertise to the specific student, but also those in the laboratory involved with similar research back home. Having just returned in early January 2017, Kulani will now be in a good position to help those in IMBM working on related projects and to elucidate those ever elusive structures.

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IMBM NRF-intern wins Fulbright Foreign Student scholarship

Lungelo Mandyoli, an NRF intern in IMBM, applied for and won a Fulbright Forgein Student scholarship to pursue his PhD studies in structural biology in the USA. The Fulbright Program, is an American scholarship program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the Fulbright Program, competitively selected American citizens may become eligible for scholarships to study, conduct research, or exercise their talents abroad; and citizens of other countries may qualify to do the same in the United States of America. The program was established to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills. It is one of the most prestigious scholarships in the world.

Lungelo will be leaving IMBM in August 2017 to pursue his studies abroad.

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Relebohile Matobole wins a poster prize at the annual UWC Science faculty research open day 2014

Hard work pays off, as demonstrated by Relebohile Matobole (MSc student in IMBM) who walked off with a poster prize at the UWC Science faculty research open day held on Tuesday 28 October 2014. His work showed how microbes isolated from South African sea sponges could be induced to produce antimicrobial compounds under different growth conditions which would not be identified under normal screening conditions.

Relebohile

Congratulations Rele, you did us proud !

As luck would have it, Kulani Mhlongo (PhD student in IMBM) also won a hamper from Whitehead Scientific. Thank you to Whitehead and congratulations Kulani !

Kulani

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