Unveiling A Fine New Project
Debuting in March 2024, our new sequencing project is an exciting addition to our repertoire. Check out the dedicated page for the Veldkos | Field Food DNA project under our DIPLOMICS Partner page!
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Congratulations are in order!
We are very proud of Cara Koopman who received her BSc Human Life Sciences: Biology with Psychology degree on 27 March 2024. Cara joined our team as an intern in February this year and has already made a valuable contribution to the laboratory. Congratulations, Cara!
The perfect brew
Dr Ntjapa Lebaka, a hop breeder at the SAB Hop Farms, recently visited the CenGen laboratory to discuss future collaborations and the integration of molecular technologies into their breeding program. Pictured above is Ms Kelly Breeds, responsible for the molecular work utilized in SABBI’s (the South African Barley Breeding Institute) …
A growing success: Agricultural Science grade 12s make us proud
Building on the well-established geneWorkshops we host for Life Sciences teachers and learners, we, in collaboration with the WCED and funders DIPLOMICS, took to the road and hosted our first workshop with the grade 12 Agricultural Science learners of Iingcinga Zethu Secondary School in Ceres in July 2023. The workshop …
A Sweet Surprise
Summer is upon us and the landscape has turned green once more. Within a 100 km radius from Worcester one can find many orchards that bear fruits to everyone’s liking. Among the many perks of working in the agricultural sector, we also sometimes get spoilt with a delivery of fresh …
Sharing and demonstrating our work at ground level
September and October traditionally are producers’ day months, signifying opportunities for us to engage with producers and industry stakeholders who simultaneously are our benefactors and the ultimate beneficiaries of our work. This year was no exception. On 21 September, Kelly Breeds confronted some windy Overberg weather to share with grain …
A well-deserved award for our founder
In the early 2000s, South African barley and wheat producers demonstrated remarkable progressiveness by affording a solo female scientist with a great vision the opportunity to introduce long-awaited DNA tools into local small grains breeding programmes. At the time, this practice had already been widely adopted in the international arena …
Brewing ideas: A Week of AB InBev Collaboration
We were delighted to host two groups from our long-time partner, AB InBev, in a single week. On September 19th, we welcomed ten participants from the South African 2023 AB InBev Internship programme along with Mr. Tobie van Rensburg. We introduced them to the role of molecular genetics in breeding …
Making plant genetics accessible to our local youth
The month of July saw the CenGen staff pulling out all stops to reach out to science learners from schools surrounding Worcester. In collaboration with the Cape Winelands Education District, and with funding from DIPLOMICS, we hosted 6 days of workshops for Life- and Agricultural Sciences learners. Like in 2022, we …
A podcast on our UK-South African teaching collaboration
Lucentlands, a local agricultural media production company, recently invited Dr Renée Prins along with Prof Diane Saunders and Dr Burkhard Steuernagel, both from the John Innes Centre in Norwich, UK, to chat about the series of Wheat Genomics and Bioinformatics workshops that were hosted in Worcester since 2017. Have a listen to …
