In the April graduation ceremonies, the department celebrated the graduation of 88 BSc. students, 10 BSc. Hons. Students, 3 MSc. students and one PhD student. Of the BSc. students majoring in Biochemistry and/or Microbiology, there were an impressive 27 subject distinctions!

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared this week as World Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Awareness Week. But what exactly are antimicrobials, and why should we care?

Honours students from Rhodes University’s Biotechnology Innovation Centre (RUBIC) travelled to Bloemfontein over the weekend to compete in the annual Intervarsitybrew: Brewing & Tasting Challenge hosted by Central University of Technology (CUT). They walked away with the FoodBev SETA Best Label Floating Trophy for designing 2023’s winning beer label, beating 17 other entries in this category.

Ground-breaking research by two Rhodes University PhD graduates, Tamryn Marsberg and Michael Jukes, has now led to the patent of viral-based products, MultiMax and CodlMax, as alternatives to the conventional use of chemical pesticides on citrus, apples, and litchi. The advantage of these products includes their lack of non-target effects such that the pest is controlled without the knock-on environmental harm.

On the evening of Thursday 3 August, Professor Adrienne Edkins delivered her inaugural lecture on the occasion of her promotion to Full Professor.

In keeping with its cherished tradition, the Rhodes University community gathered to attend the Inaugural Lecture of Professor Adrienne Edkins. This time-honoured ritual accompanies the University's recognition of an academic's elevation to the esteemed rank of full professor.

At a ceremony on 5 May, Prof Özlem Tastan Bishop was awarded the University’s Internationalization Award for the period 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2018. (The long delay in presenting the award was mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

Last week, the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at Rhodes University held a talk under the theme: “Transdisciplinary research, sustainability, data and ethics - global trends shaping the future of academic research” with alumna Professor Stephanie Burton at the Biosciences Building.

Drug-resistant infections caused by the misuse of antibiotic treatments killed over 1.2 million people worldwide in 2019. Without global action, this silent pandemic is projected to lead to 10 million deaths every year by 2050. People living in low-to-middle-income countries with limited access to new and effective antibiotics will be most affected.

The notion of ‘six degrees of separation’ is a fundamental network analysis concept in social sciences, in which persons who are quite removed from one another are linked by a chain of, at most, six shared acquaintances. Therefore, we find ourselves using the phrase "Such a small world" to express our astonishment when we discover that we share a friend with another person. Beyond that, would it not be even more astonishing to consider amino acids as social groups of people with different roles and interactions? What's in store if proteins mutate or a few amino acids change?

Distinguished academics, lecturers, Deans, DVCs, and other special guests gathered to hear the inaugural lecture delivered by Professor Joanna Dames late last month. The mood was celebratory as Dames stood to give her first lecture as a full Professor at Rhodes University.

Africa has great potential for drug discovery. The continent has natural resources, indigenous knowledge and human capacity. And it has the need: it bears more than 20% of the global disease burden. There are many internationally recognised African scientists undertaking cutting-edge research. But a lack of resources makes it difficult to conduct world-class science. A team of African biochemists, cell biologists and bioinformaticians shares some thoughts on what it would take to establish an Africa-wide drug discovery ecosystem. The authors are the key members of the COVIDRUG-AFRICA Consortium – the consortium for rapid COVID-19 drug development in Africa.

During the latest graduation ceremonies, a special parallel event was held in which Ms Gabriella Solomons was awarded a bursary contribution from infectious diseases epidemiologists Professors Quarraisha and Salim Abdool Karim for graduating as the top microbiology student in 2021.

Cancer incidence in South Africa and globally is on the rise and it is predicted that the burden of non-communicable diseases such as cancer will overtake that of infectious diseases in Africa in the next decade. In the Eastern Cape, in particular, cervical cancer has a high incidence rate among rural women, who are underrepresented in terms of medical research and genetic analyses. Rhodes University Lecturer and Researcher in Biochemistry, Dr Jo-Anne de la Mare, hopes to change this. The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) has awarded her with funding made available by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), through the Strategic Health Innovation Partnerships (SHIP) programme, to study cervical cancer based on tumour samples from Eastern Cape women.

Siphumze Bani is a Rhodes University October 2021 graduate who started his journey at the University in 2013. He has now completed his Masters in Biotechnology (distinction) with an impressive thesis project on water desalination through the Rhodes University Biotechnology Innovation Centre (RUBIC).

Vaccines are ultimately the only way to ensure that we beat COVID-19, yet vaccine hesitancy remains a threat to attaining herd immunity and protecting the whole community. In this series, Virologist at Rhodes University and member of the Provincial COVID-19 Expert Panel, Professor Rosemary Dorrington, will address queries, fears, and misinformation that many of our citizens face. Question: “What are all these different coronavirus variants I keep hearing about? And which ones are affecting South Africa?”

Vaccines are ultimately the only way to ensure that we beat COVID-19, yet vaccine hesitancy remains a threat to attaining herd immunity and protecting the whole community. In this series, Virologist at Rhodes University and member of the Provincial COVID-19 Expert Panel, Professor Rosemary Dorrington, will address queries, fears, and misinformation that many of our citizens face.

Vaccines are ultimately the only way to ensure that we beat COVID-19, yet vaccine hesitancy remains a threat to attaining herd immunity and protecting the whole community. In this series, Virologist at Rhodes University and member of the Provincial COVID-19 Expert Panel, Professor Rosemary Dorrington, will address queries, fears, and misinformation that many of our citizens face.

The Impact of Science conference, which took place online from 23 to 25 June, investigated the transformative nature and role of science in society. PhD scholar in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Biotechnology at Rhodes University, Blessing Mabate, attended this high-profile event.

Published on 1 March 2021 in the SA Medical Journal, the article titled Viruses, variants and vaccines was co-authored by Rhodes University’s Professor Rosemary Dorrington from the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology.

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Rhodes University will lead an international research collaboration that seeks to discover and accelerate the development of new antibiotics. The three-year, £1.5 million project, funded by the Newton Fund through the Antibiotic Accelerator Initiative of the United Kingdom (UK) Medical Research Council (MRC) and South African (SA) MRC, aims to discover novel compounds from natural sources that have the potential to be developed into new antimicrobial compounds to combat drug-resistant bacterial pathogens.

Two eminent Rhodes University academics, Professors Rosemary Dorrington and Rod Walker have joined a team of experts assembled by Premier Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane and assigned by the Minister of Health, Dr Zweli Mkhize, to shore up efforts to curb Covid-19 in the Eastern Cape Province.

Early detection methods of childhood-impacting diseases are generally either unavailable, unreliable or too expensive in developing countries. A partnership between Rhodes University’s Biotechnology Innovation Centre (RUBIC) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Global Innovation Centre (GIC), will see these challenges being addressed.

Rhodes University academics are assisting grade 11 Stutterheim High School pupil, Konwaba Putsu, to realise his dream. The 17-year-old Konwaba has aspirations of discovering what can be done to stop cancer from spreading in the body.

The infectious disease burden in Africa is very high, particularly for tuberculosis (TB), malaria and HIV/AIDS. In 2018, nearly a quarter (24%) of TB cases in the world were in Africa. The region accounted for 93% of malaria cases. The continent also bears the brunt of the HIV epidemic: 20.6 million of the 37.9 million people living with HIV are in eastern and southern Africa.

Rhodes University is set to become one of the hubs responsible for innovative research into drug discovery that will tackle the most prevalent diseases on the African continent.

As the recipient of the 2018 Vice Chancellor’s Senior Distinguished Research Award, Professor Brett Pletschke presented a lecture on his research topic and findings on 14 August in the Eden Grove Blue lecture theatre.

Rhodes University’s Professor Adrienne Edkins has received close to 2 million rand from the UK Government to tackle HIV-related cancer as part of an international initiative to understand and treat HIV related cancer.

Rhodes University is pleased to announce its role as key partner in a major global research programme to influence ocean health and integrated ocean governance for equitable and inclusive sustainability.

Rhodes University SARChI Chair for Molecular and Cellular Biology of the Eukaryotic Stress Response Professor Adrienne Edkins, has been awarded a 2018 Newton Advanced Fellowship grant of £101 000 (which is close to R2 million) from the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Four Rhodes University students are one step closer to making their idea for addressing food security and energy in a sustainable manner into reality.

As part of the university’s commitment to engaging with and uplifting our local community, the Science Faculty has developed a “Service Learning” programme involving a number of disciplines, including Biochemistry and Microbiology, Chemistry, Zoology and Entomology, Human Kinetics and Ergonomics, Physics and Electronics and Statistics. The purpose of the programme is to assist three local under-resourced township schools, Nombulelo, Samuel Ntsika and Mary Waters, in improving the quality of their Natural Science education, in particular their ability to carry out the practical demonstrations in the Grade 8 and 9 syllabuses.

Luyolo is improving the education of our most vulnerable learners by assisting disadvantaged high school leaners within Grahamstown with extra Maths and Science lessons

Seven researchers from Rhodes University are heading to Antarctica for the annual summer relief voyage on 30 November 2016. This is the largest contingent from any South African University on this year’s expedition and includes two academic staff members and five students.

Marine Natural Products Researcher wins award at International Marine Biotechnology Congress

The Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology is very sad to announce the death of Professor Emeritus John Duncan, former Dean of Research,

Rhodes has been awarded three more SARChI chairs.

Bioinformatics doctoral students Caroline Ross and David Penkler embark on international studies with Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey. Both were graduated from one-year MSc programme in Bioinformatics with distinction in April 2015

Dr Adrienne Edkins of Rhodes University’s Faculty of Science was recently awarded the position of Chair holder for the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) for her research in biochemistry and cell biology.

Professor Rosemary Dorrington and members of her research group, Mr Lucas Chauke and Ms Caro Damarjanan have returned from a six week research cruise to the remote sub-Antarctic, Prince Edward islands.

The newly refurbished Marine Natural Products Research Laboratory, located within the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology in the Biological Sciences Building

Aiming to bridge the knowledge gap in Alzheimer’s disease research, Biochemistry PhD student, Eden Padayachee has been awarded an International Brain Research Organisation (IBRO) travel grant to attend a prestigious neuroscience conference in New Orleans.