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08 May 2024
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The Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Prof Paul Oberholster, has the pleasure of inviting you to the inaugural lecture of Prof Dirk Opperman.
Date: 21 May 2024
Time: 17:30
Venue: Equitas
Click here to RSVP before Wednesday, 15 May 2024. Alternatively, contact Christelle van Rooyen on +27 51 401 9190.
About Prof Dirk Opperman
Prof Dirk Opperman obtained his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of the Free State in 2008. This was followed by postdoctoral research on directed evolution with Prof Manfred T Reetz at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research (Germany). In 2010, he was appointed in the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry. He subsequently established structural biology at the UFS, and his current research focus lies at the interface of evolutionary and structure-function relationships of biocatalysts, and their application in green chemistry. He is an NRF B-rated researcher with co-authored papers in Science, Nature Communications, and Angewandte Chemie.
His research has been funded by both local and international organisations, ranging from industries such as SASOL to the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF, UK). He has a long-standing collaboration with researchers at the Delft University of Technology (TUDelft, the Netherlands) and is currently part of a European Research Area Network Cofund (ERA-NET Cofund) partnership on Food Systems and Climate (FOSC) that develops biocatalysts for upcycling waste.
Darwin lecture on transitions and extinctions presented at the UFS
2009-04-01
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"Transitions and extinctions" was the topic of the latest lecture in the year long lecture series called "The story of life and survival" presented last week on the Main Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein. The lecture was presented by Dr Jennifer Botha-Brink, a palaeontologist at the National Museum, and affiliated to the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the UFS. "Most species that have ever lived on earth are extinct, so understanding the processes of extinction is crucial to understanding the evolution of the biosphere,'" said Dr Botha-Brink. She discussed the causes of mass extinctions and their effects on the world's organisms - an issue that may be relevant to us as human beings as we enter the next major mass extinction. Here are, from the left: Prof. Jo van As, Head of the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the UFS, Dr Botha-Brink and Mr Rick Nuttall, Director of the National Museum.
Photo: Stephen Collett |