Three University of the Free State (UFS) students who have had ties with CenGen will be awarded their respective degrees at the June 2018 graduation ceremony in Bloemfontein. CenGen has, to a greater or lesser extent, been involved with the studies of Hester van Schalkwyk (PhD), Tegwe Soko (PhD) and Gerna Maree (MSc Agric).
Professor Simon Krattinger, cereal genomics researcher at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia and formerly from the University of Zürich, recently visited CenGen.
Kelly Breeds (CenGen) and Marizanne Horn (Sensako) recently attended the 12th Southern African Plant Breeders’ Association (SAPBA) conference held in Umhlanga Ridge, Durban. Kelly presented a very successful talk on the progress made in a joint project between CenGen and the South African Barley Breeding Institute (SABBI) aiming to develop an improved assay for the detection and quantification of Ramularia collo-cygni DNA in barley tissue.
Dr Renée Prins recently had the privilege of being nominated by Agbiz Grain to join a group of South African wheat and barley researchers that visited leading research institutes and university groups in the UK.
At CenGen we every so often deal with very unique and interesting samples. One such sample type is the sought after “culinary black diamond of the kitchen” – the Black Perigord Truffle, scientifically known as Tuber melanosporum. Each year we receive truffle samples from Woodford Truffles SA to validate the authenticity thereof before they are used to inoculate trees with.
During the week of 29 January – 2 February 2018, a PhD student, Mr Martin Chemonges (left), and a postdoctoral fellow, Dr Ansori Maré (middle), both from the University of the Free State, received in-depth training at the CenGen laboratory on how to design, set up and interpret the results of a KASP™️ SNP experiment, using the KASP SNPline™️ instruments housed at CenGen since 2013.
The philosophy at CenGen has always been that building partnerships with academia and industry is the best approach to serve the South African (SA) agricultural sector in a sustainable way. Through the SA Winter Cereal trust-funded Molecular Service Laboratory Project (WCT/W/2009/02), CenGen assists the SA wheat breeding programmes of PANNAR and Sensako with molecular marker-assisted selection efforts in their respective wheat breeding programmes.
Kelly Breeds, pictured here with Prof. Louise Warnich, dean of the Faculty of Science, obtained her MSc degree in Genetics cum laude through the University of Stellenbosch in December 2017. In 2013 Kelly was the holder of the Hofmeyr-van Schaik medal for the best fourth-year Genetics student and continued to build on this achievement during her master’s studies.
Like the grain farmers in the Western Cape do, the CenGen team also harvests their wheat “crop” at the end of the year. The team recently spent two days at the Sensako research station in Napier where they rent space for their research material.
The NSTF-South32 Awards, was held at a prestigious Gala Dinner in Gauteng on Thursday, 29 June 2017. It is the 19th celebration of this flagship project of the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF).
