On Sunday, 07 July 2024, the University of Venda (UNIVEN) Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Bernard Nthambeleni officially opened the 28th congress of the South African Society for Biochemistry and Molec-ular Biology (SASBMB). The four-day congress took place from 07-10 July 2024 at the Protea Ranch Hotel in Polokwane. The milestone congress was hosted under the theme ‘Biochemistry Leading the Future.’ This was a fitting theme given the important role that the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology play in addressing both current and emerging biomedical challenges. The theme of the congress resonates with the motto of UNIVEN, ‘Creating Future Leaders,’ confirming the commitment of both UNIVEN and the SASBMB in building the capacity of the country to address future challenges. The congress was the most attended in the history of the society and this success highlighted UNIVEN’s preparedness to lead from the front in advancing one of its key strategic thrusts – engaged scholarship.
This year’s congress featured several plenary presentations and parallel sessions focusing on a broad range of sub-topics such as drug discovery, infectious and parasitic diseases, phytomedi-cine, non-communicable diseases, protein biochemistry, computational and structural biology.
The congress served as a platform for sharing research advances in the fields of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The participation of postgraduate students, who constitute the majority of the delegates, is an important component of the congress. Human capacity building is central to the objectives of the SASBMB. To this end, several awards were given to postgraduate students who excelled in the poster and oral presentations. The awards serve as motivation to the future scientists.
When officially opening the congress, Prof Nthambeleni, expressed his appreciation to the es-teemed invited international and local guest speakers, scholars, postgraduate students and professionals who were gathered at the congress. He said UNIVEN is honored to be hosting the prestigious, important scientific congress of this magnitude.
UNIVEN Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Bernard Nthambeleni, officially opening the congress
Prof Nthambeleni gave the background of UNIVEN and Limpopo Province which he described as the fruit and breadbasket of South Africa, producing up to 60% of the country’s fresh produce and grains. In addition, he said Limpopo Province is the country’s leading tourist destination due to its rich biodiversity and wildlife.
When speaking about the history of UNIVEN, he pointed out one of the University’s 5-year Strate-gic Thrusts; Engaged Scholarship, and he emphasised that the congress is aligned to this strategic thrust.
He continued to share the University’s rankings and mentioned that, in 2022, UNIVEN was ranked number 15 by Times Higher Education and in 2023, the Times Higher Education, Sub-Saharan Afri-ca report ranked the University 11th position out of 88 universities in Sub-Saharan African region. While it was ranked number four in South Africa and on the African continent amongst universities that are younger than 50 years worldwide according to the latest Times Higher Education Young University Rankings. In the same rankings report, UNIVEN has also improved its global/world rank-ing and is now in the top 300 universities in 2024 moving from the top 400 universities in 2023.
Prof Nthambeleni further said, “By hosting this year’s South African Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology congress, we seek to further consolidate both our research and engaged schol-arship agenda in our quest to improve our academic and research endeavours.”
He alluded to the importance of innovation in the fields of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology which was most clearly demonstrated during the recent Covid-19 pandemic that relied on vaccine and drug design efforts to sustainably contain it, emphasising that there is no doubt that the fields of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology will continue to contribute towards addressing current and emerging global challenges.
Over 400 participants from local, regional, national and international institutions attended the conference, which was mainly dominated by postgraduate students. Notably, an estimated 60% of the postgraduate students were female. This highlights the commitment of the SASBMB to address the current imbalance in gender within this sector that is currently dominated by male scientists.
Several international guests offered and shared their research ideas with the delegates towards finding solutions to our social and public health sector problems. The congress was ushered by seven international speakers and eight local speakers. Notable invited guest speakers present included Prof. Kiaran Kirk (from The Australian National University); Prof. Greg Blatch (from Notre Dame University, Australia); Prof. Matthias P. Mayer (from Heidelberg University, Germany) and Prof. Liesl Zühlke (Vice President – Extramural Research and Internal Portfolio of the South African Medical Research Council).
As planned, this congress had over four plenary sessions and seven parallel sessions with 21 breakaway sessions.
The congress registered several exhibitors who comprised of private sector companies, NGOs, researchers as well as science and technology institutions.
Prof Addmore Shonhai
The co-chair of the local organising committee, Professor Addmore Shonhai of the University of Venda’s Faculty of Science, Engineering and Agriculture, said in his talk that the platform was main-ly for postgraduate students to showcase their research, and in the process, they could also be able to network with other researchers, and indeed to convey notes about their experience in the lab as researchers, with the rest of the researchers that came to the meeting as well. He empha-sised the pivotal roles of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology foreign fighting current and emerging challenges that the country and Africa in general face.‘’We think Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is part of the toolbox that we need to address chal-lenges, especially infectious diseases and various other aspects that we face,’ Prof. Shonhai point-ed out. Prof Shonhai reported that generally nearly all the universities from the country that offer aspects of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology were represented at the congress. In addition, he mentioned that this conference, without doubt, would benefit the tourism sector in Limpopo prov-ince. ‘’We are all booked at the hotels. Sponsors and exhibitors who were in attendance had the opportunity to meet with the scientists to market their products’’. He reiterated that the confer-ence also would benefit other sectors that are indirectly connected to tourism, and this would be far-reaching in terms of its impact. Prof Shonhai also stated that the congress was a great place to network. The students presented their work orally and through poster presentations, and that way, they might be able to attract
Prof Edwin Madala
potential employers, and potential future supervisors. Indeed, this was a great opportunity for students and even for researchers, senior researchers alike, because scientists thrive on the exchange of ideas.
As co-chair of the local organising committee of this congress, Prof Edwin Madala expressed that they were satisfied with all the arrangements. He mentioned that they have recorded the highest number of participants possibly because of the fact that this was the first conference held post-COVID-19. He pointed out that organising the congress was challenging because of the high dele-gate turn-out as well as the logistical demands involved in coordinating international participants. Prof Madala indicated that they were motivated to organise the congress to showcase the UNIVEN brand. In addition, he emphasised that the congress served as a platform for their department to benchmark their work with that of the rest of the country. This is because in his opinion, the UNIVEN Biochemistry and Microbiology is emerging as one of the best in the country. “In 2018, the University did not have any research in mass spectrometry. We adopted research in mass spec-trometry using the instruments that we bought from Japan. And I can tell you that we are on the top three best universities in the country now in mass spectrometry. With this conference, we are trying to showcase that we are not as small as people think. We might be hidden in the deep ends of Limpopo, but just give us time with this. In the next ten years, we intend to place the University of Venda at the apex in the fields of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology research.
In addition, we continue to deliver quality services within the basic teaching of the subject at un-dergraduate levels. I am glad that we are moving into the space. The UNIVEN brand is growing tremendously. The University just turned 40 years in 2022. This congress will put us on the world map because next time, when the delegates, speak about the University of Venda, they will cer-tainly remember this congress as one of the best congresses ever attended and that will always be associated with the brand UNIVEN”, these were the words by Prof Madala when highlighting about the congress. He maintained that this congress is going to serve as a pedestal in their quest to become the best Biochemistry and Microbiology department in the country.
On the left photo: Members of the SASBMB council, congress local organising committee and the University of Venda, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof. Bernard Nthambeleni.
On the right photo: Members of the local organising committee of the congress with the invited guest speaker. The Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Venda, Prof Bernard Ntham-beleni (2nd, from the left hand-side, standing) graced the event.
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