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The Academic Director of the SABINA Network (South
African Biochemistry and Informatics for Natural Products) Prof J.
Saka, recently visited Pretoria and was hosted by Dr Vinesh Maharaj
(CSIR). Prof Saka’s visit forms part of the actions of the POL SABINA
project, which facilitates visits between the nodes by members of the
network. ACGT partner institutions CSIR and the Universities of
Pretoria and the Witwatersrand are SABINA network partners.
During his three-day visit Prof Saka, of the University
of Malawi, visited his student, Mr KK Nyirenda, who is currently
working in the laboratory of Dr Maharaj. Mr Nyirenda is one of the many
SABINA students who are co-supervised by both Prof Saka and Dr Maharaj.
Dr Maharaj is also a member of staff of the SABINA network and
co-supervises many SABINA students who visit his laboratory to receive
further training and conduct research into natural product chemistry.
Prof Saka also attended a meeting with the POL SABINA management at the
ACGT.
Whilst at the CSIR, Prof Saka gave a presentation on
natural products research in Malawi. With both staff and students of
the network in attendance, Prof Saka enlightened the audience on the
research currently been undertaken at the University of Malawi. He also
highlighted the results of the projects of three of the SABINA
students: Kennedy Ngwira, KK Nyirenda (both of Malawi) and Tinotenda
Shoko whom he supervises.
SABINA is a network that constitutes the following
partners: the Universities of Malawi, Namibia, Dar es Salaam, Pretoria
and the Witwatersrand; as well as the Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Tea Research Foundation of Central
Africa (TRFCA). The SABINA partnership is focused on capacity building
in natural product research, through training of MSc and PhD students.
The main goal of the SABINA network initiative is to implement
pro-active postgraduate programmes in chemistry, biochemistry and
bioinformatics of natural products. This project is funded as a
Carnegie Regional Initiative in Science and Education (see
http://sites.ias.edu/sig/rise/). The SABINA programme, as supported
through Carnegie-RISE, focuses on the development of biological
resources with application in medicine, health promotion, and
agriculture. Also see www.sabina-africa.org.
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Prof John Saka
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