SASBMB Gold and Silver Award Recipients

Prof. Ed Sturrock
Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences at the University of Cape Town

Ed Sturrock is a full professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and Head of the Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT) (2015-2020). He received his PhD at UCT in 1994 working on the synthesis and metabolism of bilirubin. Following his PhD, he went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School where he started his research on angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE). In 2003 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust International Senior Research Fellowship. His research interests include: structure-function aspects of ACE; cardiovascular drug discovery; and the molecular machinery involved in the processing of membrane-anchored proteins. He has made significant contributions to the national and international scientific communities. He is a Fellow and past council member of the Royal Society of South Africa, a Fellow of the University of Cape Town, a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, a visiting professor at the University of Bath, and has a National Research Foundation B1 rating. He has published over 130 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and six patents. Together with colleagues from the UK and USA, he founded AngioDesign (UK) Ltd, a spinout company that focuses on the rational design of enhanced next-generation drugs for proven cardiovascular disease targets, such as ACE and NEP.

Thulani Makhalanyane is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking at Stellenbosch University. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of the Western Cape in 2013 and his research focuses on understanding the ecology of microbial communities in extreme environments. He has coauthored over 80 publications in leading journals including Nature, Science, PNAS and The ISME Journal. Thulani serves on several editorial boards and is currently serves as Editor in Chief for Reviews and Perspectives of The ISME Journal and Senior Editor at mSystems. He also serves on national and international panels representing South Africa in bilateral discussions. Thulani was elected to the board of the ISME Society in October 2018. He is the Director of ISME’s Ambassador Program and is a member of the Executive Advisory Board.