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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

Traditional medicine can play important role in modern drugs discovery

2014-11-11

Indigenous knowledge possesses a great potential to improve science. Making use of this source may lead to advanced technological innovations. This is according to Dr Sechaba Bareetseng, UFS alumnus and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) Manager at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
Dr Bareetseng recently addressed the seventh annual IKS symposium on the Qwaqwa Campus.
“Interfacing indigenous and local knowledge with scientific knowledge has the potential of encouraging and developing inventions, especially in the pharmaceutical industry,” said Dr Bareetseng.

“Such interfacing can also enable access to both sets of knowledge without any discrimination whatsoever. It would also encourage co-existence that would improve understanding between the two.”

“Traditional medicine,” said Dr Bareetseng, “can play an extended role in modern drugs discovery as it is already happening in Botswana and New Zealand. These two countries are leading this wave of new thinking in as far as drug development is concerned.”

Dr Bareetseng also called on established researchers to start embracing the local communities into their research.

“Contemporary scientific research demands that local communities must co-author research conducted within and with them by the universities and research institutions. This would help in maintaining trust between the researchers and the communities that feel exploited. Regular feedback would also make communities feel part of the developments,” Dr Bareetseng argued.

He further called on the pharmaceutical companies specifically and researchers in general to convert valuable indigenous knowledge and resources into products and services of commercial value. “Plants, the ecosystem and indigenous knowledge must be preserved to provide a source of income for the local communities. Communities must also be protected from foreign exploitation of their intellectual property.”

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