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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

Institute launches Human Rights Desk

2013-10-22

Attending the launch of the first Human Rights Desk were from left: Prof Teuns Verschoor, former Vice-Rector: Institutional Affairs, Dr Leon Wessels, human rights activist and lawyer, and Dr Choice Makhetha, Vice-Rector: External Relations.
Photo: Huibrecht Hoffman
22 October 2013

The university has created another beacon for social justice and reconciliation with the launch of its first Human Rights Desk (HRD) on the Bloemfontein Campus. The HRD, which falls under the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, will promote, protect and monitor human rights at the university.

Speaking at the launch of the HRD, Prof Andre Keet, Director of the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, said the desk will investigate reported violations of human rights on campus. "It will investigate any cases that require investigation, as well as various other projects that serves the university and national and international imperatives as far as human rights is concerned.”

Prof Keet told students and staff in attendance that the desk is an expression of the university's commitment. "As a university, we have to own this particular desk, as a collective entity we should make it work and be proud of it. Our task is to build a new form of productivity into the language of rights, and build a culture of human rights among our students, which we can already see emerging."

Also speaking at the event, Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector, said the HRD will be a place where people can come who are hurt. He encouraged students to speak on human rights anywhere in the world. "I want you to think of yourself as a borderless human being, for human rights are not geographically confined. I want you to also hurt when somebody in a mall in Kenya gets hurt."

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