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30 October 2020 | Story Leonie Bolleurs

The Department of Science and Technology has extended two of the National Research Foundation’s SARChI research chairs at the University of the Free State (UFS). 

The Research Chair in Diseases and Quality of Field Crops, together with the Research Chair in Vector-borne and Zoonotic Pathogens, have both been extended for another five years. 

Prof Maryke Labuschagne, currently Professor of Plant Breeding in the Department of Plant Sciences, is leading the chair on Diseases and Quality of Field Crops.

The Chair on Vector-borne and Zoonotic Pathogens is headed by Prof Felicity Burt from the Division of Virology in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research, says it was the hard work and commitment of Profs Labuschagne and Burt that resulted in the extension of the SARChI research chairs. “They have excelled in terms of student supervision and publications in high-impact international journals.  They also serve as mentors for young academics, postdoctoral fellows, and colleagues through their passion for their different fields of interest.”

Prof Witthuhn believes that this extension of the two SARChI chairs speaks of the progress that the UFS has made in terms of developing itself as a research-led university. “We are proud of the two senior academics for their supervision, mentorship, and leadership and their contribution to building our reputation,” she says. 

Diseases and Quality of Field Crops

The focus of the research chair in Diseases and Quality of Field Crops is on advancing food security and nutrition in Africa and contributing to poverty reduction and achieving sustainability goals. 

Prof Labuschagne says despite recent advances, the headlines regarding hunger and food security remain alarming: one in nine people on earth will go to bed hungry every night. Globally, 800 million people do not have enough to eat to be healthy, and a third of all deaths among children under five in developing countries are linked to undernourishment. 

She believes the uniqueness and strength of the research chair lies in a two-pronged approach, namely the breeding of cereal crops for resistance to fungal diseases, and improving the quality of crops for processing and consumption, thus making an impact on food security in South Africa and the rest of Africa through this collaborative effort. 

She is confident that the extension of the research chair will allow them to continue and to expand their research, “which has built up a lot of momentum”.

Besides the 12 PhD and 8 MSc degrees they delivered in the first five years, they also contributed significant research outputs and cultivar releases. She adds that they would like to expand on the significant international collaboration they have established. 

Vector-borne and Zoonotic Pathogens

According to Prof Burt, the SARChI chair in Vector-borne and Zoonotic Pathogens builds on existing research strengths at the UFS and aims to contribute towards identifying and investigating medically significant arboviruses and zoonotic viruses in the country.
 
“To date, the research chair has facilitated progress towards establishing serosurveillance studies for various vector-borne viruses, specifically Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus, a tick-borne and zoonotic virus that causes severe disease with fatalities.”

The team of researchers operating within this research chair is currently also performing studies to determine the seroprevalence of severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the Free State.

Prof Burt has always taken the importance of community engagement into account, and with the current pandemic, she believes that it is now more important than ever to increase public awareness of zoonotic diseases.

She emphasises that the majority of new and emerging viruses are zoonotic in origin and that the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic highlights the impact of an emerging zoonotic pathogen on society. Therefore, she feels that it is important to build capacity in this field and to focus research efforts on identifying and understanding where these pathogens cycle in nature, the potential for spill-over to humans, and what the drivers are for the emergence of these pathogens.

Prof Burt trusts that the renewal of the research chair will allow them to take advantage of the new biosafety laboratory that the UFS has invested in. “This will permit us to research pathogens that were previously excluded from our programme due to biosafety considerations.  The chair will furthermore contribute towards enhancing, strengthening, and developing research and knowledge in the field of epidemiology and pathogenesis of vector-borne and zoonotic viruses,” she says. 

News Archive

Research project gives insight into the world of the deaf
2005-11-30

Mr Akach in conversation (using sign language) with his assistant Ms Emily Matabane. Photo: Lacea Loader

UFS research project gives insight into the world of the deaf

The Sign Language Division of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of Afro-Asiatic Studies and Language Practice and Sign Language has signed a bilateral research project with the universities of Ghent and Brussels to write a book on sign language. 

“We want to compare the Belgium and South African sign languages with each other.  The book will be about the deaf telling us about themselves and how they live.  It will also focus on the use of story telling techniques and the grammar used by deaf people.  We want to see if the hand forms and the grammatical markers and other linguistic features that deaf people from these two countries use are the same or not,” said Mr Philemon Akach, lecturer at the UFS Sign Language Division and coordinator of the research.  

According to Mr Akach, the sign language community in South Africa, with about 600 000 deaf people who use South African Sign Language (SASL) as first language, is quite big.  “Over and above the deaf people in South Africa, there are also the non-deaf who use SASL, like the children of deaf parents etc.  This book can therefore be used to teach people about the deaf culture,” he added.

Another of Mr Akach’s achievements is his election as Vice-President of the newly established World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI).  The association was established earlier this month during a conference in Worcester.

Mr Akach has been actively involved with sign language interpretation since 1986 and has been interpreting at the World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) since 1987.  “My appointment as Vice-President of the WASLI is an emotional one.  I have been involved with deaf people for so long and have been trying to create awareness and obtain recognition for sign language, especially in Africa,” said Mr Akach.  WASLI is affiliated to the WFD.

According to Mr Akach there was no formal structure in the world to support sign language and sign language interpreters.   “Now we have the backup of WASLI and we can convince governments in other African countries and across the world to support deaf people by supporting WASLI and therefore narrow the communication gap between the deaf and the hearing.  My main aim as Vice-President is to endeavour for the recognition of sign language and spoken language interpreters as a profession by governments,” he said. 

According to Mr Akach the formal training of interpreters is of vital importance.  “Anybody who has a deaf person in his/her family and can communicate in sign language can claim that they are an interpreter.  This is not true.  It is tantamount to think that all mother tongue or first language speakers are interpreters.  Likewise students who learn sign language up to whatever level and are fluent in signing, should still join an interpreter’s programme,” he said.

“Sign language interpreting is a profession and should be presented as an academic course alongside other spoken languages.  The UFS has been taking the lead with sign language and spoken language interpretation and was the first university on the African continent to introduce sign language as an academic course,” he said.

“Although sign language has always been an unknown language to young people it has become quite popular in recent years.  This year we had a total of 160 students at the Sign Language Section of the UFS and the numbers seem to increase steadily every year,” he said.

Mr Akach’s assistant, Ms Emily Matabane, is deaf and they communicate in sign language.  Ms Matabane also handles the tutorials with students to give them hands-on experience on how to use sign language.  


Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
30 November 2005

 

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