Cover picture credit: ZA Pretorius In 1998 Renée approached the well-known plant pathologist Prof Sakkie (Zack) Pretorius of the University of Free State to ask him to collaborate on the very first wheat QTL mapping study in South Africa. Together with the former company PANNAR SEED a career-long collaboration with …
At the end of 2025 we can look back on yet another successful year in our geneWorkshop schools outreach series. In this year alone, we have reached a remarkable 469 learners and 15 teachers from 48 different schools across 17 workshops. Of these, 11 workshops were generously funded by DIPLOMICS. …
September and October were, as usual, a busy time outside of the lab for the CenGen scientists as they trekked across the country to join collaborators in the field on trial site visits and producers’ days. The first of these was Kelly Jordaan and Diana Mngomezulu accompanying the SABBI team …
The CenGen Team is incredibly proud of our independent director, Dr. Xolelwa Zulu-Magwenyane, for accepting new leadership role at Female Academic Leaders Fellowship (FALF) NPC. She has a long-standing history of forging enduring partnerships. She played an important role in establishing bioinformatics capacity amongst South African wheat scientists through connecting …
A big thank you to Grain SA/Graan SA for nominating Renée for the Lifetime Award Category where CenGen was proudly represented as one of the 10 finalists. It is an incredible privilege and rewarding to work in and for the Agricultural sector in South Africa, where our food producers made …
On the 1st of August, Carla de Beer joined our laboratory as a new Research Scientist. Hailing from neighbouring town Ceres, Carla brings fresh ideas and experience from a diverse variety of fields to the team – from teaching senior phase Life Sciences, to agricultural consulting, project management, marketing, and …
What a privilege it is to be collaborating with scientists such as Elaine and Willem! Congratulations to both of you on your achievements! Elaine van Eeden, Pre-breeding Project Lead at Syngenta, was announced as the 2025 winner of the Future Agri Perspectives Women’s Voice Competition. https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/agri-news/south-africa/wheat-breeder-wins-second-womens-voice-competition Willem Boshoff was inaugurated …
The CenGen/DIPLOMICS Training Laboratory was established in 2023. Since its inception, we have hosted more than 600 high school learners in our geneLearners workshop series, as well as teachers and fellow scientists. To set down laboratory infrastructure requires significant financial input, and we are thankful towards DIPLOMICS for enabling us …
At CenGen, we believe continuous investment in equipment is essential for advancing research—from insect DNA extraction to new plant pathogen DNA extraction protocols. We are grateful to SABBI for providing the Cryostation, stereo microscope, and auxiliary equipment, and to DIPLOMICS for the biosafety cabinet. This equipment enables us to handle …
It was a privilege to attend and present at the celebration of the one-year existence of 1KSA (https://www.1ksa.org.za/). CenGen staff (fltr Elsabet, Renée and Michaela) also met up with various plant sample contributors which included fltr Thabang Makola (SANBI, Karoo National Botanical Garden, Worcester), Cecile Bester (Dept Genetics, SU) and …
