Shehu Awandu, a PhD student in Biochemistry at the University of Pretoria (UP) was recently selected to receive the highly competitive American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) 2016 Annual Meeting Travel Award.

During November he attended the ASTMH 65th Annual Meeting at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis in Atlanta, Georgia. The award, which is partially supported in by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, provides a complimentary Annual Meeting registration, round-trip coach and airfare to Atlanta, five nights' hotel stay at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis and a cash stipend.

This is one of the ASTMH's premier awards which is both honorific and substantive. It facilitates the participation of chosen tropical medicine researchers and trainees from around the world in the Annual Meeting.

At the Annual Meeting Shehu had the opportunity to present his work, titled 'Glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency phenotype and genotype distribution in point-of-care settings in Vhembe district, Limpopo Province, South Africa'. He is supervised by Prof Lyn-Marie Birkholtz, SARChI Chair in Sustainable Malaria Control in the Department of Biochemistry at UP. His PhD project, based in the Vhembe District is important in contributing towards South Africa's aim of malaria elimination by 2018.