Invited Speakers
7 – 10 July 2024 | Protea Hotel Ranch Resort, Polokwane, South Africa
Invited International Guest Speakers
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Prof. Kiaran Kirk
Australian National University | IUBMB Plenary Speaker -
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Matthias P. Mayer
Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University, Germany -
Prof. Tomohisa Ogawa
Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Japan -
Prof. Gregory Lloyd Blatch
Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE; Notre Dame University, Australia; Rhodes University, SA -
Prof Dr Nikolai Kuhnert
Constructor University, Germany -
Prof Stanley Mukanganyama
University of Zimbabwe -
Prof Nicaise Ndam
Director of Research, IRD UMR MERIT
Prof. Kiaran Kirk
Australian National University | IUBMB Plenary Speaker
Kiaran Kirk is Professor of Biochemistry, and Dean of Science, at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, having worked previously at the University of Oxford and the University of Sydney. His primary research interest is in the biology of the malaria parasite and his research has provided fundamental insights into parasite biochemistry, into the molecular basis of antimalarial drug resistance and into the mechanism of action of a diverse range of new generation of antimalarial agents, some of which are in advanced clinical trials.
Professor Kirk’s work has focused in particular on the pathways and proteins by which molecules and ions cross cell membranes, and which play a key role in the uptake of nutrients, in the egress of metabolic wastes, and in the regulation of cell ion homeostasis. He and his colleagues have characterized a suite of membrane transport proteins in the surface membrane of the blood-stage malaria parasite. One of these proteins, PfATP4, functions as a sodium (Na+) efflux pump, maintaining a low Na+ concentration in the parasite cytosol. PfATP4 has emerged as the target of a surprisingly large number of chemically-disparate antimalarial compounds identified in high-throughput phenotypic screens.
Professor Kirk’s research has had significant translational impact, with the biochemical assays that he and his colleagues have developed being used to assess the mechanism of action of drugs entering the antimalarial drug-development pipeline, to ensure that that there is not overinvestment in compounds sharing the same molecular target.
Sponsored by:
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Matthias P. Mayer
Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University, Germany
Current position: Research group leader at the Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
At the University of Freiburg, Germany, I studied biology with majors in cell biology, genetics, biophysics and physical chemistry. As a graduate student in the Institute for cell biology, at the University of Freiburg, I worked in the lab of Prof. H. Kleinig on the desaturation reactions of the carotinoid biosynthesis pathway, identifying an oxidoreductase responsible for electron transfer from carotinoids to menaquinones. As a postdoctoral research associate in the lab of Prof. C. Dale Poulter, in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, I worked on enzymes of the isoprenoid biosynthetic pathway and contributed to the characterization of the farnesylation of the oncoprotein ras. Subsequently, in the laboratory of Prof. Costa P. Georgopoulos at the University Medical Center of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, I worked on the analysis of protein-protein interactions and contributed to the understanding of the envelope stress response in Escherichia coli. Then I joint the lab of Prof. B. Bukau at the Institute for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Freiburg, in Freiburg, Germany, where I started to work on molecular chaperones of the 70 kDa heat shock protein (Hsp70) family, and the heat shock response in E. coli. With Prof. Bukau I moved to the Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH) in Heidelberg, Germany, where I became independent group leader.
My major research interests focus on molecular chaperones of the Hsp70 and Hsp90 families and on the regulation of the heat shock factor Hsf1-mediated heat shock response in human cells. We use multipronged approaches to analyze the molecular mechanisms of these proteins, including biochemical/biophysical methods like fluorescence spectroscopy and hydrogen exchange mass spectrometry, but also in vivo genetics and molecular biology techniques. We made major contributions to the understanding of the mode of action of Hsp70 chaperones, the elucidation of their allosteric mechanism and the mechanics and dynamics of their interaction with client proteins; in collaboration, we solved the structure of the E. coli Hsp70 DnaK in the ATP-bound state and in complex with the J-domain of the DnaJ cochaperone, which is essential for targeting Hsp70 to client polypeptides. We elucidated how Hsp70 regulates DNA binding of the tumor suppressor p53 and how Hsp70 attenuates the heat shock response in mammalian cells at a molecular level. We also contributed to the understanding of the conformational dynamics of Hsp90 chaperones and their regulation by cochaperones.
Prof. Tomohisa Ogawa
Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Japan
Dr. Tomohisa Ogawa has obtained his Ph. D. degree in Chemistry from Kyushu University (in 1991). After that, he was a JSPS research fellow (PD) and assistant professor at Faculty of Science, Kyushu University. In 1997 he became an associate professor at Faculty of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University. From 2001 till 2020, he was associate professor at Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University. During this period, he was also visiting researcher at Institut de Recherche Scientifique de Saclay, Bureau de l’Atomique et de l’Energie, France (Oct-Nov 1995, Nov-Dec 1998), at University of Michigan Medical School, USA (Oct. – Nov. 2004), visiting associate professor at Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University (2002 -2004), and program leader at Center of Interdisciplinary Science, Tohoku University (2004 -2009).
Dr. Ogawa has been a Professor at Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University in Japan (from 2020 – present). He is active in the wide-ranging research fields of Applied Biochemistry (Protein engineering), Molecular bilogy (Molecular evolution, Venomics) and Structural biochemistry, and his research interest are as follows, (1)Venomics project: venomous animal genome, transcriptome and proteome, drug discovery from venom against incurable disease such as Alzheimer disease, (2) Snake venom and anti-venom, (3)Molecular evolution of proteins: accelerated evolution, experimental molecular archeology using ancestral proteins, (4) Lectin-carbohydrate interaction: cell regulation via carbohydrate recognition, (5) Functional food proteins and peptides, (6) Biomineralization mechanism: pearl shell nacre, protein-inorganic compound. He has published a number of various review and original papers in renowned journals
(https://researchmap.jp/read0172397/published_papers?lang=en).
Prof. Gregory Lloyd Blatch
Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE; Notre Dame University, Australia; Rhodes University, SA
Professor Gregory Blatch has worked in academia for over 30 years, and his contributions to the academy and the promotion of science more broadly, have been recognized through a number of awards and fellowships (e.g. Senior Fellow of the Cell Stress Society International, SFCSSI; Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, FRSSAf). He has most recently served as Professor and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE (2021-2023). Previously, he served as Pro Vice-Chancellor (PVC) Research at the University of Notre Dame Australia (2017-2020), and remains associated as Emeritus Professor. He is also Visiting Professor, Rhodes University, South Africa, and has maintained his NRF Rating as an “Internationally Acclaimed Researcher”. He has developed teaching and research capacity and capability at Departmental, School, Faculty and University-wide levels, with over 15 years of experience as a Senior/Executive Leader. His personal research interests fall within the broad field of cellular stress biology, and he is an international leader for his work on the role of stress proteins in disease (e.g. cancer) and infection (e.g. malaria).
Prof Dr Nikolai Kuhnert
Constructor University, Germany
Nikolai Kuhnert studied chemistry and obtained his PhD at the University of Würzburg. Subsequently he spent postdoctoral years at the University of Cambridge and Oxford (UK). He obtained his first independent academic appointment at the University of Surrey. Since 2006 he is Full Professor of Analytical Chemistry at Constructor University (former Jacobs University Bremen). His research interests are in the field of processed food and medicinal plants investigated by mass spectrometry. The research made seminal contributions to improve the understanding of the chemical composition of processed food (in particular roasted coffee, cocoa, black tea, red wine) and their potential health benefits to the consumer. Nikolai Kuhnert has published over 200 scientific peer reviewed papers.
Prof Stanley Mukanganyama
University of Zimbabwe
Stanley Mukanganyama is a Professor of Biochemistry who works at the University of Zimbabwe as a researcher/lecturer teaching undergraduate, postgraduate (MSc, ) and supervising MPhil and DPhil Research students in Biotechnology and Biochemistry. Prof Mukanganyama believes it is important to know how traditional and other complementary medicines work at a molecular level in order to determine how effective they are or they may have toxic effects when they are taken singly or together with conventional drugs. The active chemical agents in them are tested for their ability to kill microbes and other disease causing organisms. Phytochemicals are isolated and tested singly or in combination with other anti-infective drugs. The safety profiles of phytochemicals is tested in in vitro and in vivo systems including normal cells and rodents. Prof. Mukanganyama has been supported previously by the International Foundation for Science (IFS, Stockholm, Sweden) on Screening natural plant products from selected plants from Zimbabwe as a source of anti-infective compounds for phytomedicines development, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS, Trieste, Italy) on antimycobacterial agents, the Swedish International Development Agency under the International Science Programmes (SIDA, ISP, Uppsala University Sweden) Scientific evaluation and validation of efficacy of phytochemicals from Medicinal plants from Zimbabwe, and the The Henry Wheeler Center for Emerging & Neglected Diseases (CEND, University of Berkeley, California, USA) Small grants on Antibacterial agents from the leaves of Vernonia adoensis. Prof Mukanganyama also trained as a natural product biochemist at the University of Technology Malaysia under the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the Department of Chemistry, University of Botswana. Prof. Mukanganyama holds BSc Honors in Biochemistry, a PhD in xenobiochemistry from the University of Zimbabwe and did postdoctoral studies on mycobacteriology at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Chemical Pathology University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Prof Nicaise Ndam
Director of Research, IRD UMR MERIT
Nicaise NDAM is Director of Research at the IRD’s UMR MERIT and is identified as its new Director. He conducted research in Senegal, Tanzania, Benin and Ghana on parasite factors modulating the clinical complications of malaria. This work led to the discovery of a parasite protein VAR2CSA involved in the placental tropism of parasitized red blood cells, and which is currently being developed as a vaccine to prevent placental malaria. Prof Ndam and his team based at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Paris-Cité University, use a structure-guided approach to identify antigens with vaccine potential in the prevention of severe malaria. He is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Ghana and co-directs the joint malaria laboratory at the Clinical Research Institute of Benin.
Invited Local Guest Speakers
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Prof. Sithandiwe Mazibuko-Mbeje
Biochemistry Department, North West University -
Prof. Collet Dandara
Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town -
Prof. Pascal Bessong
SAMRC-UNIVEN Antimicrobial Resistance and Global Health Research Unit -
Prof. Theresa Coetzer
College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, University of KwaZulu Natal -
Prof. Ozlem Tastan Bishop
Director of Research Unit in Bioinformatics, Rhodes University -
Prof. Liesl Zühlke
South African Medical Research Council
Prof. Sithandiwe Mazibuko-Mbeje
Biochemistry Department, North West University
Prof Mazibuko-Mbeje is a highly motivated, hard-working upcoming young NRF-Y-rated scientist with an h-index of 23 and 70 publications in high impact factor journals and 3 book chapters. Holder of the NWU FNAS faculty award “Best Biochemistry Lecturer in 2021, NWU FNAS Highly Promising Next-Generation Researcher Award 2023, and Sharing of Expertise Award – established academic staff 2023. Before joining NWU in 2020 as an Associate professor in the Biochemistry department, she was a specialist scientist at SAMRC, BRIP Cape Town, recently she was promoted to full professor and head of the department in the Mahikeng campus. She has supervised to completion of 7 Honours, 8 Masters, and 4 PhDs to completion in the field of Biochemistry (2020- date). She is currently supervising and co-supervising 3 MSc and 2 PhD students and one Postdoctoral fellow. Prof has presented her work in research work at nine national conferences, two invited speakers, and two international posters (2020-2023). Prof Mazibuko-Mbeje has attracted funding of <1.5million from NRF Thuthuka Post Ph.D. track, UCDG, Mobility grant, FNAS research grant, NRF support for Y-rated scientist, and SAMRC EIP grant (2020-2023). The UCDG mobility grant enabled Prof Mazibuko to make an international sabbatical research visit, Ancona (October 2022-April 2023), she has also established national and international collaborations with Helmholtz Zentrum (Germany) and Stockholm University (Sweden). Prof Mazibuko-Mbeje serves on the FNAS faculty board and she is a member Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAF), and Peer Review Panel for Journal Applications for DHET Accreditation. She also serves in different professional scientific bodies, including the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions (SACNASP), she is also serving on different editorial boards, including as an editorial board member of Frontiers in Pharmacology, and Journal of Biomedical and Life Sciences Editorial Board. Prof Mazibuko is a founder and organizer of World diabetes day in Mahikeng, 2022-2023. She is also a member of Yethu Scholars, composed of a body of female academics and community seeking to target young women and men at secondary schools and empower young scholars. She has communicated her research to the community via NWU news as part of motivating young people from various backgrounds.
Prof. Collet Dandara
Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town
Professor Collet Dandara is currently serving as Deputy Dean of Postgraduate Education in the Faculty of Health Sciences, at the University of Cape Town. At the same time, he is leading research as a Director of the Platform for Pharmacogenomics Research and Translation Unit funded by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). He is a Professor of Human Genetics, who early training was in Biochemistry, later transition to Human Genomics. Collet is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), as well as a Fellow of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf). He is a full member of the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine (IDM) at UCT. His research work focusses on “Pharmacogenomics and Drug Metabolism”. Professor Dandara has extensive experience in research that investigates the functional significance of inherited human mutations in DNA. His work has explored the pharmacogenetics of infectious and cardiovascular diseases in Africa. He is one of the leading experts in pharmacogenomics research on the African continent with international recognition, and is the current Chair of the African Pharmacogenomics Network. He was honoured as a young affiliate of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2012 and in 2016 was one of the founding members of the TWAS Young Affiliate/Alumni (TYAN) Executive Committee (2016-2021). Professor Dandara has a massive track record of successful supervision to graduation of postgraduate students, with over 60 students graduated (>30 Honours, > 20 MSc and >15 PhD). His research group regularly hosts postdoctoral Research Fellows. Professor Dandara was a Finalist in the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) of South Africa in 2014, in the category of Human Capacity development. He is widely published with more than 160 manuscripts in international peer-reviewed journals and has an H-index of 37. He is a former Board Member of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and a current member of the African Society for Human Genetics (AfSHG) where he serves in its Executive Committee. He is a recent past president of the Southern African Society for Human Genetics (SASHG), and a member of the Southern African Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Professor Dandara also serves on the pharmacogenetics subcommittee of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR). Collet had a huge passion for dissemination of knowledge, mentorship of emerging academics/ colleagues, and career guidance to high school learners.
Prof. Pascal Bessong
SAMRC-UNIVEN Antimicrobial Resistance and Global Health Research Unit
Director, SAMRC-UNIVEN Antimicrobial Resistance and Global Health Research Unit
Pascal Bessong trained as a molecular virologist in South Africa, France, and the United States. He is an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, and a B-2 rated scientist of the National Research Foundation of South Africa. He is currently Professor of Microbiology and Global Health at the University of Venda; and the Founding Director of the South African Medical Research Council – University of Venda Antimicrobial resistance and Global Health Research Unit. Professor Bessong is enthusiastic in the development of human capital and research infrastructure for biomedical research. His scientific contributions and opinions have appeared in influential outlets such as Nature, Science, Lancet HIV, Lancet Global Health, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), and Bulletin of the World Health Organization. Professor Besong is an Associate Editor of the South African Journal of Science, and a student of bioethics and health law.
Prof. Theresa Coetzer
College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, University of KwaZulu Natal
Professor Theresa Coetzer’s research focusses on proteolytic enzymes as diagnostic and drug targets in African parasitic diseases: mainly animal and human trypanosomiasis (nagana and sleeping sickness) and also trichinellosis and theileriosis. She is an expert in producing antibodies in chickens (egg yolk antibodies, IgY) against proteins and peptide epitopes identified in silico. Prof. Coetzer obtained her MSc in Biochemistry (cum laude) under the supervision of Dr Alfred Polson (famous for IgY and virus isolation methods), BSc (Hons) (cum laude) and BSc from the University of Stellenbosch and her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Natal (1993) under the supervision of Prof. Clive Dennison. She was a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA in 1995. She served as the President of the South African Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2012-2014) and is a member of the International Proteolysis Society, the Royal Society of South Africa and the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).
She graduated 41 MSc and fifteen PhD students. She served as Acting Deputy Dean, Faculty of Science and Agriculture and Acting Dean of Research, College of AES. She established the Animal Research Ethics Committee (AREC) at the University of Natal (1996). She has served on and chaired the NRF specialist evaluation and rating panel for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She obtained international funding from the European Commission FP5 and FP6 programmes to study proteases and from the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed) to develop diagnostic reagents for Trypanosomiasis
Prof. Ozlem Tastan Bishop
Director of Research Unit in Bioinformatics, Rhodes University
Özlem is full Professor in structural bioinformatics at Rhodes University, South Africa and distinguished adjunct Professor at Saveetha University, Chennai, India.
She received her BSc degree in Physics from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. Then she moved to the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the same University for her MSc degree. She obtained her PhD from Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics and Free University, Berlin, Germany in 2003. While doing her PhD, Özlem became interested in structural biology, and during her postdoctoral positions (Texas University, USA; University of Western Cape and University of Pretoria, South Africa) she gained experience in structural bioinformatics as well as structural biology.
In 2009, Özlem took up an academic position at Rhodes University, South Africa. She established the Research Unit in Bioinformatics (RUBi) in 2013. She has graduated 25 PhD and 38 MSc students since she joined Rhodes University. She received the Vice Chancellor’s Distinguished Senior Research award for 2020 and South African Society for Bioinformatics (SASBi) Silver Award, 2022.
She serves on the Editorial Board for PLOS One and Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences and Frontiers in Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Biological Modeling and Simulation Section, and she is an Advisory Board member of F1000Research Bioinformatics Gateway.
Özlem’s broad research interest is structural bioinformatics and its applications to drug design and development. Her recent interest is in the allosteric mechanisms of proteins and understanding the effects of nonsynonymous single nucleotide variations on protein structure and function. She has published over 95 research articles.
Prof. Liesl Zühlke
South African Medical Research Council
Professor Zühlke is a paediatric cardiologist and Vice-President of the South African Medical Research Council. Her research span Global Cardiovascular Health in children and adults. She has over 180 publications and book chapters, has been cited 52 000 times and has been shortlisted for the Women in Science Award of South Africa. She was the 2018 recipient of the MRC/Dfid African Research Leader Award, the Winner of the NRF award for Social Impact in Research, the Metrodora Award for Public Health and Research in Emerging economies and the UCT Vice-Chancellors Alan Pfifer Award for research. She was recently inducted into the prestigious UCT College of Fellows, UCT’s highest academic honour and is a Member of the South African Academy of Sciences ( MAssaf).
She has achieved the highest leadership positions within cardiology in South Africa; President of the Paediatric Cardiac Society of South Africa, President of the South African Heart Association and currently chair of both the Paediatric and Rheumatic Heart Disease Taskforces in the Pan-African Society of Cardiology. Internationally she serves as the President of Reach (Rheumatic Heart Disease, Evidence, Advocacy, Communication and Hope), a board member of the World Heart Federation and NCD-A- Non-Communicable Diseases Alliance-, International scientific advisory board of Children’s Heart Link and Global ARCH and an executive member of SAVAC (Strep A Vaccine Global Consortium). As the only women Full Professor of Paediatric Cardiology in the country, she is an active and vociferous advocate for the advancement and empowerment of equity and women in medicine: including being on the Lancet Commission for Women in Cardiovascular Disease.