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02 September 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa
Precious  Lesupi
“Being a humanitarian cost you absolutely nothing.” – Precious Lesupi

University of the Free State (UFS) second-year BA Journalism student, Precious Lesupi from Kanana in the North-West, is a self-proclaimed ‘lover of people.’ She chose to spend her 21st birthday with disadvantaged children afflicted by life-threatening and life-limiting conditions at Bloemfontein’s Sunflower Children’s Hospice.  

Precious explains that her self-developed and coordinated charity and donation drive dubbed ‘Sunflower’s 21st’, was born in commemoration of her father who passed away after suffering from cancer. Her donation drive is aimed at catering for the medical needs of children battling chronic and terminal illnesses, such as cancer. The campaign will run until 2 November 2019, which marks this year's International Children's Day.

Her own personal experiences with genetic illnesses and diseases have been severely trying. But she believes her different life experiences and her family orientation have helped to shape her into being the vibrant, empathetic, philanthropic, and strong-willed young woman she is today.

Her goal is to continue initiating positive, life-enriching experiences for the less fortunate – especially children. 

Precious simultaneously drove another campaign alongside Sunflower’s 21st, called the Winter Jacket Challenge, which aimed to provide the homeless with jackets and warm clothing for winter. 

The embodiment of a clear benevolent spirit that burns to create positive memories and experiences for the less fortunate.

If you would like to contribute Precious’ initiative contact: 0815372500 

News Archive

Newly operational sequencing unit in genomics at UFS
2016-09-09

Description: Next Generation Sequencing  Tags: Next Generation Sequencing

Dr Martin Nyaga and his research assistant,
Tshidiso Mogotsi in the Next Generation
Sequencing Laboratory.
Photo: Charl Devenish

The Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) unit at the UFS was established as an interdisciplinary facility under the Directorate for Research Development, Faculty of Health Sciences and Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.

The aim of the NGS facility is to aid internal and external investigators undertaking studies on Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing, assembly and bioinformatics approaches using the more advanced Illumina MiSeq NGS platform.

The NGS unit became operational in 2016 and is managed by Dr Martin Nyaga and administered through the office of the Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences, under the leadership of Prof Gert Van Zyl. Dr Nyaga has vast experience in microbial genomics, having done his PhD in Molecular Virology.

He has worked and collaborated with globally recognised centres of excellence in Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic genomics, namely the J. Craig Venter Institute and the Laboratory of Viral Metagenomics, Rega Institute, among others.

The unit has undertaken several projects and successfully generated data on bacterial, viral and human genomes. Currently, work is ongoing on bacterial and fungal metagenomics studies through 16S rRNA sequencing.

In addition, the unit is also working on plasmid/insert sequencing and whole genome sequencing of animal and human rotaviruses. The unit has capacity to undertake other kinds of panels like the HLA, Pan-cancer and Tumor 15 sequencing, among others.

Several investigators from the UFS including but not limited to Prof Felicity Burt, Prof Wijnand Swart, Dr Frans O’Neil, Dr Trudi O'Neill, Dr Charlotte Boucher, Dr Marieka Gryzenhout and Dr Kamaldeen Baba are actively in collaboration with the NGS unit.

The unit has also invested in other specialised equipment such as the M220 Focused-ultrasonicator (Covaris), 2100 Bioanalyzer system (Agilent) and the real-time PCR cycler, the Rotor-Gene Q (Qiagen), which both the UFS and external investigators can use for their research.

Investigators working on molecular and related studies are encouraged to engage with Dr Nyaga on how they would like to approach their genomics projects at the UFS NGS unit. 

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