UP Vice-Principal becomes first female president of the Royal Society of South Africa

Posted on October 10, 2019

The University of Pretoria’s Vice Principal for Research and Postgraduate Education, Professor Stephanie Burton, has been elected President of the Royal Society of South Africa, the first woman to hold the position in the organisation’s 111-year history.

UP PhD student a runner-up in SA Agency for Science and Technology Advancement competition

Posted on March 13, 2019

Ms Yashini Naidoo, a second-year PhD student at the University of Pretoria’s (UP) Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics (CMEG), is the runner-up in the Writing category of the South Africa Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA) Young Science Communicator Competition. Her...

UP Academic elected to International Board

Posted on October 02, 2018

Dr Thulani Makhalanyane, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology has recently been elected to the board of the International Society of Microbial Ecology (ISME). The board currently has 12 directors from the USA, Europe, South America, and Australia. At 34...

Bright student has a planet named after him

Posted on July 11, 2018

How many people can say they have had a planet has been named after them and that they have published internationally, all before reaching the age of 21? Bernard Smit, a final-year microbiology student at the University of Pretoria (UP), recently published an article in the international journal...

Prof Don Cowan published his 300th paper

Posted on June 25, 2018

To add to Prof Don Cowan's accomplishments on the 6th of June 2018 he achieved his 300th publication. The paper titled “Temporal shifts of fungal communities in the rhizosphere and on tubers in potato fields” was accepted by the journal of Fungal Biology. Achieving 300 publications is...

Old Profs can still pipette!

Posted on May 15, 2018

In a pipetting competition held by Inqaba Biotech at the recent SASM conference, Prof demonstrated that despite years of office time, he still hasn't lost the art! The competition was to use 4 different pipettes, and pipette multiple volumes of water to a total of 2mL, into a pre-weighed...

African ISME Ambassadors Meeting

Posted on April 12, 2018

The African ISME Ambassadors Meeting was held during 1st-7th April across the Main Campus of the University of Pretoria and at Muldersdrift in conjunction with the South African Society of Microbiology meeting. The main activity was an ISME Ambassadors workshop with the ISME President, ISME...

CMEG congratulates Marc and Casper on the successful completion of their Ph.D. degrees

Posted on February 12, 2018

The Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics (CMEG) recently had two of its Ph.D. candidates successfully complete their degrees. Both Casper Kamutando and Marc W. Van Goethem presented the results of their Ph.D. research projects on Monday 5th February 2018 during their Prestige Seminars, and...