Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Frater Celebration Day Hybrid Conference to be held on 5 May 2022

04 May 2022

Robert Frater — The research efforts in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery in the Faculty of Health Sciences, UFS, have come a long way since the establishment of a homograft bank, animal research, and laboratory-based research on cardioplegia by Prof Hannes Meyer in the 1980s

Several world-class scientists and academics in the field of cardiovascular research will converge at the University of the Free State (UFS) on Thursday (5 May 2022) for a one-day hybrid conference to explore and celebrate the massive strides made in this critical field at the UFS Robert W M Frater Cardiovascular Research Centre.

The research efforts in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery in the Faculty of Health Sciences, UFS, have come a long way since the establishment of a homograft bank, animal research, and laboratory-based research on cardioplegia by Prof Hannes Meyer in the 1980s. Renewed interest in 2004 under the leadership of Prof Francis E Smit culminated in the establishment of the Robert W M Frater Cardiovascular Research Centre (the Frater Centre) in 2015. This was made possible through donor funding, especially by Dr Robert W M Frater MD PhD (honoris causa, UFS), a South Africa-born New York-based cardiothoracic surgeon, researcher and innovator as infrastructure and project support by the UFS.

The vision of the Frater Centre is to be a leading cardiovascular research institution in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. It provides an interdisciplinary training and research platform for scientists and clinicians from different backgrounds to develop as researchers and collaborators in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery and related domains. Activities are focused on the development of African solutions for African problems.

Three main divisions
The Frater Celebration day will highlight the achievements made thus far in a hybrid format in four sessions, which can be attended on a virtual platform or in person. The centre’s local and international collaborators will participate in the programme, and Dr Ronnie van der Merwe, the Group CEO of Mediclinic International, is the guest of honour.

The Frater Centre consists of three main divisions, all of which will form part of the focus of the conference programme in various forms during the day:

1) The Clinical Research Division addresses cardiovascular disease on a broad front, ranging from population and prevalence studies, healthcare solutions and clinical outcomes studies in a specific South African and African context.

2) The Research, Development and Commercialisation division is divided into Tissue Engineering and Cell Biology, Tissue Banking and Large Animal studies, and bioengineering to develop African solutions and technology within these domains.

3) The Simulation Programme provides an integrated interdisciplinary platform for the education and training of individuals and teams in cardiovascular, thoracic, anaesthetic, perfusion technology and related nursing fields in a state-of-the-art simulation unit. The research centre is developing a unique and leading programme and systems in this field. This endeavour is also developing IT models for training, evaluation and research.

The Frater Centre and 4IR
The Centre is firmly established in the fourth industrial revolution. It is new technology-driven, creating new IT platforms and boasts extensive interdisciplinary projects at the biomedical sector's local, national, and international levels.

It is essential to note that the extensive and successful collaboration within the Frater Centre not only exists on institutional level but also nationally and internationally. These collaborators assist, mentor, direct and contribute to the research activities.

Click: Link to the event
Event programme

News Archive

Project aims to boost science pass rate

2009-01-19

Attending the launch of the HP grant of about R1 million to the UFS are, from the left: Mr Leon Erasmus, Country Manager for HP Technology Services in South Africa, Prof. Teuns Verschoor, Acting Rector of the UFS, and Mr Cobus van Breda, researcher at the UFS's Centre for Education Development and manager of the project.
Photo: Lacea Loader

The University of the Free State (UFS), in partnership with computer giant Hewlett Packard (HP), wants to boost the pass rate of its science students by using mobile technology.

The UFS is one of only 15 universities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and the only university in South Africa to receive a grant from HP to promote mobile technology for teaching in higher education valued at USD$ 100,000 (or about R1 million). Altogether 80 universities from 28 countries applied for the grant.

“Last year HP invited a number of selected universities to submit proposals in which they had to explain how they are going to utilise mobile technologies in the redesign of a course that is presented at the university. The proposal of the Centre for Education Development (CED) at the UFS entitled “Understanding Physics through data logging” was accepted,” says Mr Cobus van Breda, researcher at CED and manager of the project.

According to Mr van Breda, students who do not meet the entrance requirements for the three-year B.Sc. programme have to enroll for the four-year curriculum with the first year actually preparing them for the three-year curriculum.

In order to increase the success rate of these students, the project envisages to enhance their understanding of science principles by utilising the advantages of personal computer (PC) tablet technology and other information and communication technologies (ICT) to support effective teaching and learning methodology.

“By using PC tablet technology in collaboration with data-logging software, a personal response system, the internet and other interactive ICT applications, an environment different from a traditional teaching milieu is created. This will consequently result in a different approach to addressing students’ learning issues,” says Mr van Breda.

The pilot project was launched during the fourth term of 2008 when 130 first-year B.Sc. students (of the four-year curriculum) did the practical component of the physics section of the Concepts in General Science (CGS) module by conducting experiments in a computerised laboratory, using data-logging software amongst other technology applications. “The pilot project delivered good results and students found the interactive application very helpful,” says Mr van Breda.

”The unique feature of the latter is the fact that real-life data can be collected with electronic sensors and instantly presented as computer graphs. It can then be analysed and interpreted immediately, thus more time can be devoted to actual Science principles and phenomena and less time on time-consuming data processing,” says Mr van Breda.

The CGS module can be seen as a prerequisite for further studies in physics at university level and in this regard it is of essence to keep looking for new models of learning and teaching which can result in student success. This year the theoretical and practical component of the physics section of the CGS programme will be done in an integrated manner.

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za
16 January 2009

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept