This year a new Coronavirus emerged in Saudi Arabia and has a greater than 40% mortality rate. These seemingly isolated events can have an impact on all of us if we ignore them.

Prof Marietjie Venter, an associate Professor in the Zoonosis Research Unit at the University of Pretoria and the Director of the Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis, will talk on predicting future viral threats in humans and animals, at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Johannesburg on Thursday 26 September 2013 at 18:30. This talk forms part of the Sci-Bono’s monthly Speak2aScientist programme.

Prof Venter was also the recipient of a TW Kambule Award for individuals who made an outstanding contribution to SETI through research and its outputs over the last five to ten years. This National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) award is sponsored by the National Research Foundation (NRF). She is known for defining the role of several viruses as causes of pneumonia and neurological diseases in humans and animals. She also investigates the role of viruses in acute respiratory infections, as well as vector-borne zoonotic viruses in neurological infections in humans and animals. She contributed to research in molecular epidemiology involving emerging respiratory viruses in South Africa.

For more information and to book your seat at this free lecture, please phone Refilwe Pico at 011 639 8448 or send an email to [email protected]