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10 December 2018 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Leonie Bolleurs
One step closer to treat HIV/Aids
Nthabiseng Mokoena is working on an article based on her research about drug development in infection models, which will be published under the Research Chair in Pathogenic Yeasts.
South Africa has the biggest and most high-profile HIV epidemic in the world, with an estimated seven million people living with HIV in 2015. In the same year, there were 380 000 new infections while 180 000 South Africans died from AIDS-related illnesses. 

Invasive fungal infection, common in certain groups of patients with immune deficits, is a serious driver of global mortality in the context of the global HIV pandemic. 

“Despite a major scientific effort to find new cures and vaccines for HIV, hundreds of thousands of HIV-infected individuals continue to die on a yearly basis from secondary fungal infection. Intensive research needs to be done to help reduce the unacceptably high mortality rate due to the infection in South Africa,” said Nthabiseng Mokoena.

Mokoena is a master’s student of Prof Carlien Pohl-Albertyn, who is heading the Research Chair in Pathogenic Yeasts in the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology at the University of the Free State (UFS). 

She received her master’s degree at the December graduations of the UFS. Her thesis is titled: Caenorhabditis elegans as a model for Candida albicans-Pseudomonas aeruginosa co-infection and infection induced prostaglandin production.

Research Chair in Pathogenic Yeasts

Earlier this year, the National Research Foundation approved the Research Chair in Pathogenic Yeasts. One of the projects of the group of scientists in this chair include a study of the interaction between the yeast, Candida albicans and the bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa in different hosts, using a variety of infection models.

In her research, Mokoena studied the response of infectious pathogens such as yeasts and bacteria, using a nematode (little roundworm) as an infection model to mimic the host environment. Nematodes have a number of traits similar to humans. It is thus a good alternative for humans as infection models, as it is unethical to use the latter.

Nematodes have a number of advantages, including its low cost and fast reproduction and growth. 

Mokoena monitored the survival of the nematodes to see how infectious the pathogens are, especially in combination with each other. 

Role of infection model for drug development

When these two pathogens were studied in a lab (in vitro), it was found that they can inhibit each other, but after studying them in the infection model (in vivo), Mokoena showed that these pathogens are more destructive together. 

This finding has a huge impact for the pharmaceutical industry, as it can provide information on how drugs need to be designed in order to fight infectious diseases where multiple organisms cause co-infections.

Many pathogens are resistant to drugs. Through this model, drugs can be tested in a space similar to the human body. Seeing how pathogens react to drugs within a space similar to the human body, can contribute to drug development. 

Not only are drugs developed more effectively through this model, it is also less expensive. 

It is the first time that the combination of the yeast, Candida albicans and the bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is being experimented on in this model. 

News Archive

Prof Antjie Krog speaks on verbalising revulsion and the collusion of men
2015-06-26

From the left are Prof Lucius Botes, UFS: Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities; Prof Helene Strauss, UFS: Department of English; Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, UFS: Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies; Prof Antjie Krog, UCT: Department Afrikaans and Dutch; Dr Buhle Zuma, UCT: Department of Psychology. Both Prof Strauss and Dr Zuma are partners in the Mellon Foundation research project.

“This is one of the bitterest moments I have ever endured. I would rather see my daughter carried away as a corpse than see her raped like this.”

This is one of 32 testimonies that were locked away quietly in 1902. These documents, part of the NC Havenga collection, contain the testimonies of Afrikaner women describing their experiences of sexual assault and rape at the hands of British soldiers during the South African War.

This cluster of affidavits formed the foundation of a public lecture that Prof Antjie Krog delivered at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus on Tuesday 23 June 2015. The lecture, entitled ‘They Couldn’t Achieve their Goal with Me: Narrating Rape during the South African War’, was the third instalment in the Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Trauma, Memory, and Representations of the Past. The series is hosted by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation Studies at the UFS, as part of a five-year research project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Verbalising revulsion

The testimonies were taken down during the last two months of the war, and “some of the women still had marks and bruises on their bodies as evidence,” Prof Krog said. The victims’ words, on the other hand, struggled to express the story their bodies told.

What are the nouns for that which one sees? What words are permissible in front of men? How does one process revulsion verbally? These are the barriers the victims – raised with Victorian reserve – faced while trying to express their trauma, Prof Krog explained.

The collusion of men

When the war ended, there was a massive drive to reconcile the Boers and the British. “Within this process of letting bygones be bygones,” Prof Krog said, “affidavits of severe violations by white men had no place. Through the collusion of men, prioritising reconciliation between two white male hierarchies, these affidavits were shelved, and, finally, had to suffer an embargo.”

“It is only when South Africa accepted a constitution based on equality and safety from violence,” Prof Krog said, “that the various levels of deeply-rooted brutality, violence, and devastation of men against the vulnerable in society seemed to burst like an evil boil into the open, leaving South African aghast in its toxic suppurations. As if, for many decades, we did not know it was there and multiplied.”

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