When biotechnologist Dr Dina Coertzen was awarded a scholarship in 2011 that included three months at Lund University in Sweden, she had to apply for a passport for the first time in her life.

“It was my first time going abroad,” she recalls. “I was 22 years old, and going to this European country was an eye-opener. It was one of the best experiences of my life,” says Dr Coertzen, who is now a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Pretoria (UP).

“Lund had excellent facilities for performing protein crystallography, the biochemical technique I was interested in,” she adds. “In the absence of a synchrotron facility in Africa, analysing our samples at this facility was a big advantage for our research.”

The grant was a partnership between South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The research it funded formed part of Dr Coertzen’s master’s degree, which focused on characterising a protein target in the parasite responsible for causing malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, in order to develop a new antimalarial drug.

But things changed when, on the recommendations of her supervisor, Professor Lyn-Marié Birkholtz, and co-supervisor, Emeritus Prof Braam Louw, her degree was upgraded from a master’s to a PhD, with which she graduated in 2015.

Dr Coertzen downplays this prestige and honour that recognises her exceptional academic achievements and research outputs, saying that at the time, several students in her department were upgraded.

“The opportunities that UP has granted me have brought me to where I am today – it’s where the doors have always opened for me,” says Dr Coertzen, who hails from Pretoria and who arrived at the University as an undergraduate in 2007 and hasn’t left, apart from a brief period last year.

She had been working at the UP Institute for Sustainable Malaria Control as the University’s first inter-faculty senior postdoctoral research fellow, when she was offered a lecturing post at the University of Stellenbosch. Off she went, until UP offered her the same position three months later, which she grabbed, as her lawyer husband and their three-year-old daughter, Rafaelle, were still in Pretoria.

Now back home, Dr Coertzen is in her element. She has always been interested in academia and the idea of being a researcher, way before she set foot on a university campus.

“It was the path I had always envisioned for myself,” says Dr Coertzen, who chose to study towards a BSc in Zoology, adding that she was fascinated by National Geographic documentaries and biology ever since she was a little girl.

“I was interested in doing research on animals, stemming from a childhood dream based on the work of Jane Goodall [the British primatologist and anthropologist who studied wild chimpanzees and still campaigns for their protection through her institute].”

But from her first zoology lectures, she knew it was not for her. Biochemistry, however, was a delight.

“We had this amazing lecturer called Prof Anabella Gaspar,” Dr Coertzen recalls. “Her knowledge about biochemistry was phenomenal, and it was so fascinating to see how a single molecule of glucose is responsible for so many metabolic pathways in our bodies in order to give us energy. After that, I was a lost case, and immediately switched over to biochemistry.”

Now she regards the discipline as “the chemistry of life” because it is about the molecular chemistry and building blocks that make cells function.

And biochemistry is making her childhood dreams come true, albeit it in a different field to what she envisaged.

A lot of her success is thanks to Prof Birkholtz, the NRF South African Research Chair (SARChI) in Sustainable Malaria Control who is based at UP. Prof Birkholtz took Dr Coertzen under her wing and selected her for honours, with which she graduated cum laude. Under Prof Birkholtz’s supervision and mentorship, Dr Coertzen completed a postgraduate degree, which was followed by postdoctoral studies. After this, Prof Birkholtz employed Dr Coertzen as a senior researcher and project manager on a large-scale collaborative project between six SARChI chairs leading malaria research countrywide. 

During this time, Dr Coertzen applied for an NRF rating, for which she was awarded a Y2 rating in 2022 that recognised her potential to establish herself as a researcher at the time.

“Receiving the Y2 rating was a bit of a shock to be honest,” she says. “But as a young scientist, the rating gave me an enormous confidence boost and undoubtedly was key to my successful appointments. Being rated in South Africa is fundamental to sustained success in academia, so it is truly one of my greatest achievements.”

Despite all this, Dr Coertzen says that Prof Birkholtz’s biggest gift was introducing her to the fight against the malaria parasite.

“I want to use my knowledge as a biologist to make a difference to the health burden on the African continent,” Dr Coertzen says.

She received an African Challenges grant from Swiss-based partnership Medicines for Malaria Venture in 2022. 

“Although the main objective of the project failed, and we couldn't answer our research question, we managed to set up a platform that is now being routinely run in our lab, which made the project worthwhile,” Dr Coertzen says.

She believes being a woman in science has been to her benefit.

“Over the past 20 years, there’s been a huge movement to get more women into science. A lot of funding bodies actually prefer women to apply for positions, grants, bursaries and postdocs, both nationally and internationally. 

“In many instances, being a woman has counted in my favour. However, this might lead to a disparity between men and women in the workplace. The greatest advancement for women in science is not that they should be treated differently because they are woman, but rather that men and women should be treated equally. That's something I feel quite strongly about.”