Victoria Ontong Wins Top Third Year Student Prize from Merck

Victoria Ontong receives the prize from Roche representative Tamara Fedderke

Victoria Ontong receives the prize from Merck representative Tamara Fedderke

Victoria Ontong won the prize for the best third year student at UWC Biotechnology. She won a cash prize and trophy presented by Merck representative, Tamara Fedderke. Congrats!

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment

IMBM celebrates the World Cup 2014

On the 12th of June 2014 the Soccer World Cup kicked off and IMBM was in a celebratory mood ! We took the opportunity to get all the lab members together for a kick-off party on the 13th with Nacho’s, Pão de queijo’s, Caipirinha’s and a few Corona’s (Mexico vs Cameroon in Brazil :)) before watching the first few games together. What a team !!

DSCN3988

 

 

DSCN3983

 

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment

Ask and ye shall receive….

IMBM is now the proud host of a Q-Pix 2 colony picking robot, named Pixie. A conversation between Assoc. Prof. Marla Tuffin and Prof Esta van Heerden at UFS (Grant holder for the Q-Pix 2), asking if IMBM could use their robot for library screening, ended with an agreement to ship the underused robot to IMBM where it could be put to work immediately on a variety of metagenomic based projects and in the process establishing a new collaboration between the two labs. IMBM has in the past made use of the same class of robot hosted by CSIR in Pretoria for screening of large metagenomic libraries.

This together with a newly purchased MicroFill Microplate Dispenser enhances the Institutes ability to screen metagenomic libraries in a high throughput manner and complements the programs which are underway to develop in vitro screening platforms.

Colony Picker2

.

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment

Pharmasea international guests present at the Dean’s Frontiers Lecture

Professor Marcel Jaspars and Dr. Rainer Ebel from the Marine Biodiscovery Centre, University of Aberdeen presented their work in discovery of secondary metabolites from marine and extremophilic sources. The natural chemical diversity from unexplored environments is being used to combat infectious diseases that are increasingly resistant to the current generation of antibiotics.

marcel jaspers visit

 .

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment

PharmaSea in the news !

“Antibiotic abyss: The extreme quest for new medicines”

This is the title of the recently (27 Jan 2014) published New Scientist article showcasing the PharmaSea project which aims to explore extreme marine habitats to discover novel antibiotics. IMBM is a proud partner of the program launched in October 2012 (see IMBM involved in €9m EU-project below). Follow the link below to read the full article.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129530.800-antibiotic-abyss-the-extreme-quest-for-new-medicines.html#.UuN8kvT8IaQ.

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment

IMBM goes to SASM 2013

The South African Society for Microbiologist (SASM) held their biannual conference this year in Bela Bela, Limpopo, hosted by the University of Witwatersrand. IMBM joined the rest of the South African microbiology community for three days of presentations and posters on the latest developments in South African microbiology.

DSCF3691

Representing IMBM were Lonnie van Zyl, Tanya Nyman, Lucas Black and Brent Fortune who presented talks. William Mavengere, Reyghana Hoosen, Walter Novendo, Wesley Williams and Zimasa Sithole were also in attendance presenting posters.

_56A9175

The plenary presentations provided interesting insights into current cutting edge research. Peter Lipke from Brooklyn College, New York, USA described the role of amyloids at the surface of yeast in adhesion and flocculation. Using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) they directly observed the interaction of amyloids with a cell surface. By describing how amyloids on the cell surface activates adhesion, the mechanism of the pathogen interacting with the host and biofilm formation becomes clearer. Micheal Goodin from the University of Kentucky observed directly how viruses interact with a plant host, and infect other plant cells despite the plants thick cell walls. A virus is able to use the microtubule network of a cell as a highway of infection to transport themselves to the plasmodesmata situated at the cell walls which are connected to the adjacent cells. Doug Rawlings from Stellenbosch University discussed the South African technology that has been exported to the world for the extraction of minerals using bacteria. And finally the diversity and applications of magnetotactic bacteria was discussed by Nicolas Ginet and Christopher Lefevre from the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

_56A9226

Nicolas and Christopher followed their presentations with an excellent workshop on the sampling and identification of magnetotactic bacteria, followed by a sampling expedition to the water bodies surrounding Bela Bela. Pictures and a description of the workshop can be found here.

DSCF3716The conference was not all about work, with IMBM taking some time to enjoy the hot-springs and a beer or two. Pictures of the conference can be found here.

DSCF3685

.

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment

10th UWC SARChI awarded to Prof. Marla Tuffin

Banner_SRACHI4.

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment

The Hunt for Antibiotics

Deep in the cold waters of the world’s oceans lurk marine organisms which could hold the key to one of the biggest challenges of modern medicine – resistance to antibiotics. The widespread use and misuse of antibiotics is leading to the development of strains of bacteria that are not susceptible to standard drug treatments. The World Health Organisation has warned that rising resistance to antibiotics could mean the “end of modern medicine as we know it”.

The PharmaSea project is part of a worldwide mission traveling to remote locations in China, New Zealand, Chile, Antarctica, the Arctic and the South African coastline. Scientists collaborating on the PharmaSea project, including a group of IMBM researchers from the University of the Western Cape, are hoping that organisms found, such as deep-sea sponges and bacteria, could help create vital new antibiotics. Samples collected by the collaborators in the PharmaSea project will be analyzed at the state of the art labs at the University of Tromso.

Dr Joff Lacey joins a team of scientists in Norway hoping to discover the next antibiotic in the fjords of Norway. Species and organisms that are collected on each expedition are meticulously sorted and then tested for their ability to kill bacteria.

 

 .

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment

IMBM student writes a feature in latests edition of Quest magazine

Read Gerda du Plessis’s article on her expedition to the Southern Ocean and microbes from the ocean  in the latest issue of Quest Magazine on page 23. 

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment

IMBM involved in €9m EU-project

Prof Marla Tuffin, Acting Director of IMBM, leads the UWC research team, and includes Prof Michael Davies-Coleman, in a new EU-FP7 funded project called PharmaSea, which was launched in October 2012. The press release follows:

Logo_Pharmasea_final

IMBM LOGO_FA

 

 

 

 

The collaborative project PharmaSea will bring European researchers to some of the deepest, coldest and hottest places on the planet. Scientists from the UK, Belgium, Norway, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Denmark will work together to collect and screen samples of mud and sediment from huge, previously untapped, oceanic trenches. The large-scale, four-year project is backed by more than €9.5 million of EU funding and brings together 24 partners from 14 countries from industry, academia and non-profit organisations, including scientists from the University of the Western Cape.

PharmaSea_pressrelease_kirsti_helland

Colourful sea squirt / Cold water Ascidiaceae, a Botryllus specie, Copyright: Kirsti Helland, Marbio, University of Tromsø, Norway

The PharmaSea project focuses on biodiscovery research and the development and commercialisation of new bioactive compounds from marine organisms, including deep-sea sponges and bacteria, to evaluate their potential as novel drug leads or ingredients for nutrition or cosmetic applications. The international team of scientists is led by Professor Marcel Jaspars of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and coordinated by Dr. Camila Esguerra of the University of Leuven in Belgium.

One of the aims of PharmaSea is to discover new marine bacteria that can produce novel antibiotics: “There’s a real lack of good antibiotics in development at the moment. There hasn’t been a completely new antibiotic registered since 2003. If nothing’s done to combat this problem we’re going to be back to a ‘pre-antibiotic-era’ in around ten or twenty years, where bugs and infections that are currently quite simple to treat could be fatal”, says Marcel Jaspars, who is Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Marine Biodiscovery Centre at the University of Aberdeen. PharmaSea will also focus on drug discovery for neurological, inflammatory, and other infectious diseases.

Only a handful of samples have ever been taken from deep trenches and investigated, so the project is breaking new ground. “PharmaSea will not only be exploring new territory at the bottom of the oceans, but also new areas in ‘chemical space’. With our broad platform of cutting-edge bioassays to detect drug-like activity, we’ll be testing many unique chemical compounds from these marine samples that have literally never seen the light of day. We’re quite hopeful that we’ll find a number of exciting new drug leads”, says Dr. Camila Esguerra, Industrial Research Fellow and Lecturer with the Laboratory for Molecular Biodiscovery at the University of Leuven,

PharmaSea_press_release_Marcel_Jaspars_s

Arctic Collection in 2009 with Project Leader Marcel Jaspars, Copyright: Marcel Jaspars, University of Aberdeen

The international team will employ strategies commonly used in the salvage industry to carry out the sampling. Using fishing vessels, researchers will drop a sampler on a reel of cables to the trench bed to collect sediment. Scientists will then attempt to grow unique bacteria and fungi from the sediment that can be extracted to isolate novel drug-like molecules for pharmacological testing. Partners from China, Chile, Costa Rica, New Zealand and South Africa will support the PharmaSea project. The first field tests will be carried out next autumn in the Atacama Trench in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles off the coast of Chile and Peru. The team will also search the Arctic waters off Norway and the Antarctic via Italian and South African partners. Deep trenches will also be accessed off New Zealand and China.

Marine organisms that live more than 2,000 meters below the sea level are considered to be an interesting source of novel bioactive compounds as they survive under extreme conditions. “Trenches are separated from each other and represent islands of diversity. They are not connected to each other and life has evolved differently in each one,” explains Marcel Jaspars.

New Scientist reports on PharmaSea ! : http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129530.800-antibiotic-abyss-the-extreme-quest-for-new-medicines.html

Further information: http://www.pharma-sea.eu

Information for editors:

CONTACT Communication:

Annette Langbehn
BIOCOM AG
Phone: +49 30 26492171
Email: press(at)pharma-sea.eu

Euan Wemyss
University of Aberdeen, King’s College (Office of External Affairs)
Phone: +44 1224 272960
Email: e.wemyss(at)abdn.ac.uk

LINKS:

PharmaSea: http://www.pharma-sea.eu
Marcel Jaspars / University of Aberdeen: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/ncs/profiles/m.jaspars/
Camila Esguerra / KU Leuven: http://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/nl/person/00044015

Partners:

· University of Leuven (Belgium)
· The University of Aberdeen (UK)
· Aquapharm Biodiscovery Ltd (UK)
· University of Tromsø (Norway)
· eCoast Research Centre (Belgium)
· Biobridge Ltd (UK)
· Fundación MEDINA (Spain)
· University College Cork, National University of Ireland
· BIOCOM AG (Germany)
· Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (Italy)
· Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche ibp-cnr (Italy)
· University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain)
· The Royal Society of Chemistry (UK)
· c-LEcta GmbH (Germany)
· Technical University of Denmark
· Deep Tek Ltd (UK)
· Advanced Chemistry Development UK Ltd
· Wuhan University (China)
· Institute of Microbiology – Chinese Academy of Sciences (China)
· University of the Western Cape (South Africa)
· Institute for Cell Dynamics and Biotechnology (Chile)
· National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica
· International Union for Conservation of Nature (Switzerland)
· University of Waikato (New Zealand)

.

Posted in Home Page | Leave a comment