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Department of Chemistry strengthens international ties through International Chemical Symposium

30 June 2021 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath

organic chemistry_web read more — Dr Charlene Marais, Prof Vladimir Azov and Prof Ulrich Hennecke

The Department of Chemistry at the University of the Free State (UFS) held a successful online International Symposium on Organic Chemistry on 15 June 2021. The symposium brought together scientists from several South African and foreign universities and created a virtual platform for a long-awaited discussion stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic. About 20 participants from universities in South Africa, Belgium, and Germany presented their lectures during the symposium. In addition, this symposium was directed at the postgraduate students in the Department of Chemistry at the UFS, allowing them to present their results to an international audience and to foster their engagement in scientific research.

For more than a year, the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented the common personal communication avenues for the researchers: face-to-face (F2F) conferences, symposia, and workshops. To bridge this gap, Prof Vladimir Azov and Dr Charlene Marais from the Department of Chemistry organised the online meeting for the researchers from the UFS and several other local and foreign universities, all working in the field of organic chemistry.

Online material from the International Symposium on Organic Chemistry is available at here

Collaborative project between the UFS and VUB towards the development of gel-based drug release systems

The symposium also served as a long-awaited inception meeting for the collaborative project between the Organic Chemistry group at the UFS and the Organic Chemistry (ORGC) group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). This project is jointly funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and FWO (Research Foundation – Flanders); it is aimed at the development of new peptide-based materials with properties controllable by precisely tuned interactions of unnatural amino acids included in the peptide sequence. Such peptides can, for example, be used as smart materials for precisely controllable drug release. The South African team members, directed by Prof Vladimir Azov, will specialise in the development of the new amino acid building blocks, whereas the VUB team, headed by Prof Ulrich Hennecke, will focus on peptide preparation and studies on their properties.

This kick-off meeting was initially planned as a F2F event in June 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 travelling restrictions and finally migrated to a virtual space. This provided an opportunity to present the project proposals and to discuss the initial results in a much broader circle than would have been possible within the common F2F meeting framework.

News Archive

Mure, 10-12 June 2009

2009-06-05

Production: Mure
Language: Afrikaans
Text: Prof. Marcelle Pieterse
Director: DeBeer Cloete
Venue: Scaena Theatre
Date: 10 – 12 June 2009
Time: 19h30
Age Restriction: PG 16 (LVS)

Tickets:
R 30.00 Adults
R 25.00 Pensioners, scholars & students
R 25.00 Block bookings 10+
R 15.00 Club Theatron members

Tickets available at Computicket (Mimosa Mall & any Checkers) or at the door.

When reality and context can no longer be bounded by walls, the psyche of man not only starts moving beyond its own limits, but the person, once trapped inside the self, looses perspective and even identity. “Mure” is ‘n brand new script by the Nagtegaal-prize finalist, Marcelle Pieterse. Die script is unique in the South African theatre style seeing that it is completely devoid of context, time and even reality. Pieterse is currently an honours student in Drama- and Theatre Arts at the UFS and her fresh new take on the changing South Africa, anchored in its own history, is not only poignant, but even shocking.

“Mure” is an experimental, avant-garde South African drama incorporating styles such as theatre of cruelty, theatre of the absurd and even aspects of futurism, all coming together in a narrative of a nurse in a hospital for mentally ill patients. Pieterse dedicates this script to her third year drama lecturer, Stephanie Brink, who exposed here to the new and changing face of contemporary drama. This production is a third year module production and DeBeer Cloete directs. Tickets are available from Computicket.

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