Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Months
January February March April July May June August September October November December
Previous Archive
20 October 2023 | Story Samkelo Fetile
2023 UFS Thought-Leader Webinar Series

The University of the Free State (UFS) is pleased to present a panel discussion titled, Student protest action, politics, and higher education, which is part of the 2023 Thought-Leader Webinar Series. Join Prof Adam Habib and Dr Max Price for a discussion about their respective experiences in leadership positions during the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall student protest movements, the lessons learnt during these tumultuous times, and how these events continue to influence the current landscape in the higher education sector in South Africa and further afield. The discussion will reflect on their recent books Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall, and Statues and Storms, and will be facilitated by Prof Francis Petersen, the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the UFS.

Date:   Tuesday 21 November 2023

Time: 13:00-14:30

Click to view document WATCH: vimeo.com/kovsies/tls23

For further information, contact Alicia Pienaar at pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za.

Some of the topics discussed by leading experts in 2022 included, Crime in South Africa – who is to blame; Are our glasses half full or half empty; What needs to be done to power up South Africa; A look into the future of South Africa. This year’s webinar series commenced with a discussion on Threats to South Africa’s stability and security challenges, followed by A culture of acceptance – is this South Africa’s greatest threat? and The need for a global and regional plan / approach to respond to the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Facilitator:

Prof Francis Petersen

Vice-Chancellor and Principal, UFS

 

Panellists:

Prof Adam Habib

Director: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

 

Dr Max Price

Emeritus Vice-Chancellor, University of Cape Town; academic and consultant

 

Bios of speakers:

 

Prof Adam Habib

Prof Adam Habib is an academic, researcher, activist, administrator, and well-known public intellectual. A Professor of Political Science, Prof Habib has more than 30 years of academic, research, and administration expertise, spanning five universities and multiple local and international institutions.

Prior to his appointment as Director of SOAS, he was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa between 2013 and 2020. He has also served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at the University of Johannesburg, Executive Director of Democracy and Governance at the Human Sciences Research Council, and as Director of the Centre for Civil Society and Professor of Development at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is widely published, including his two well-received monographs, South Africa's Suspended Revolution: Hopes and Prospects and Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall.

Prof Habib’s academic contributions resulted in his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in addition to serving as a fellow of both the African Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Science of South Africa. He also serves on the Council of the United Nations University.

 

Dr Max Price

Dr Max Price was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town in July 2008, completing his ten-year term in June 2018. During the first seven years of his term, UCT experienced growth and success in research and teaching, as well as global recognition. This continued during the last three years but was overshadowed by the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall protests during 2015 to 2017. Dr Price led the university through these storms and back to safe harbour in 2018.

Dr Price studied Medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), during which time he became deeply involved in student politics, becoming SRC president a year after the Soweto uprising. He subsequently did a PPE degree at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Following clinical work in academic and rural hospitals in South Africa, he gained a master’s degree in Community Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and then worked as an academic in the areas of health policy and economics, rural health services, and health science education.

He was dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits for ten years. He now consults in public health, higher education, strategic leadership, and advises foundations on grant making. He is currently a scholar in residence at the Atlantic Institute. He is the author of Statues and Storms: Leading through change, published in 2023.

News Archive

Science is diversifying the uses of traditional medicines
2017-07-17

Description: Dr Motlalepula Matsabisa Tags: traditional medicines, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Dr Motlalepula Matsabisa, Malaria, priority disease  

Dr Motlalepula Matsabisa.
Photo: Anja Aucamp

According to the World Health Organisation, a large majority of the African population are making use of traditional medicines for health, socio-cultural, and economic purposes. In Africa, up to 80% of the population uses traditional medicines for primary healthcare.

The Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) was identified as a lead programme under the directorship of Dr Motlalepula Matsabisa. Research undertaken by the IKS Lead Programme focuses on some key priority diseases of the country and region – including malaria, HIV, cancer, and diabetes.
 
Not just a plant or tree
Malaria is a priority disease and is prevalent in rural and poor areas, resulting in many traditional health practitioners claiming to treat and cure the disease. There may well be substance to these claims, since as much as 30% of the most effective current prescription medicines are derived from plants.  For instance, chloroquine, artemisinin for malaria, Metformin for diabetes, Vincristine and Vinblastine for cancer, are plant-derived drugs.  

Dr Matsabisa’s current research is investigating a South African medicinal plant that has been shown to have in vitro antiplasmodial activity, with subsequent isolation and characterisation of novel non-symmetrical sesquiterpene lactone compounds offering antimalarial activity. These novel compounds are now patented in South Africa and worldwide. This research is part of the UFS and South Africa’s strive to contribute to the regional and continental malaria problem. The UFS are thus far the only university that has been granted a permit by the Medicines Control Council to undertake research on cannabis and its potential health benefits.

“All of these projects are aimed
at adding value through the scientific
research of medicinal plants, which
can be used for treating illnesses,
diseases, and ailments.”

Recognition well deservedThrough Dr Matsabisa’s research input and contributions to the development of the pharmacology of traditional medicines, he recently became the first recipient of the International Prof Tuhinadrin Sen Award from the International Society of Ethnopharmacology (ISE) and the Society of Ethnopharmacology in India. ISE recognises outstanding contributions by researchers, scientists, and technologists in the area of medicinal plant research and ethnopharmacology internationally.

More recently, Dr Matsabisa undertook research projects funded by the National Research Foundation, as well as the Department of Science and Technology, on cancer, gangrene, and diabetes. He is also involved in a community project to develop indigenous teas with the community. He says, “All of these projects are aimed at adding value through the scientific research of medicinal plants, which can be used for treating illnesses, diseases, and ailments”.

Dr Matsabisa has worked with many local and international scientists on a number of research endeavours. He is grateful to his colleagues from the Department of Pharmacology in the Faculty of Health Sciences, who are dedicated to science research and the research of traditional medicines. The IKS unit also received immense support from the Directorate of Research Development.

 

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