Thermophiles conference in China

Profs Esta van Heerden and Derek Litthauer attended the Thermophiles 2009 conference in Beijing, China, where both presented lectures on research results relating to the characterisation of novel catalytic activities for known enzymes and the genome sequence of Thermus scotoductus SA01.

International Conference on Gold Science

In July, Jacqueline van Marwijk (PhD student) presented results on the isolation of proteins involved in gold nanoparticle formation at the 5th International Conference on Gold Science, Technology and its Applications, in Heidelberg, Germany.

Visit to the Centre of Molecular Biology in Spain

In August, Prof Koos Albertyn, Landi Mabizela (PhD student), and Mariana Erasmus (MSc student) spent two weeks in the laboratory of Prof José Berenguer at the Centro de Biologia Molecular Severo Ochoa, Spain, which allowed the expansion of the available expression vectors for the thermophilic host Thermus thermophilus.