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Proteins and enzymes the focus of Prof Dirk Opperman’s inaugural lecture

27 May 2024 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied

Prof Dirk Opperman, a distinguished biochemist in the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry, recently (21 May 2024) delivered his inaugural lecture on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS).

The title of his lecture was: Exploring, Exploiting, and Evolving Life at the Atomic Level.

Prof Vasu Reddy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Internationalisation at the UFS, welcomed guests, stating, "An inaugural lecture is a major milestone, celebrating a life’s work that culminates in the title of professor. It marks an important chapter in an academic career, with much more to be achieved in the journey of producing important knowledge.”

He believes that an event such as this highlights the university’s pride in the achievements of its academic staff and aligns with Vision 130. “The UFS is proud to host such lectures, as they are significant moments to reveal and showcase the value of excellence in our knowledge pool in research, teaching, and innovation. As a university, we strive to make a difference through groundbreaking work, particularly in addressing society's challenges,” said Prof Reddy, emphasising that this topic truly speaks to the university’s commitment to impactful work in the hard sciences.

Deciphering the unknown

The topic of the lecture captures the essence of Prof Opperman’s research. He explains that ‘exploring’ refers to the determination of the three-dimensional structures of proteins and enzymes. ‘Exploiting’ involves the use of these enzymes to convert substrates into products of value, and ‘evolving’ pertains to mutating the DNA to change the protein, giving it different functions, activities, selectivity, or specificities.

In his lecture, he remarked that if we know the structures of these proteins and enzymes, we can explore what to do with them and how to change them. According to him, there are the unknown knowns, the unknown unknowns, and the known unknowns. “We may know of specific activities and reactions by microorganisms, but we don’t know which enzyme is responsible; similarly, we can know the reactivity of an enzyme, but not necessarily their true physiological functions. I am trying to figure out all these unknowns,” he said.

In his lecture, he also raised the question of whether AI could replace experimental determination of protein structures. "No, not yet; it is only predictions," he believes, commenting that navigating the unknown unknowns is a dangerous place in science.

Establishing the field of structural biology

Prof Opperman, born and raised in the Free State, completed his undergraduate studies at the UFS. Later, in 2008, he obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from the same university. Following his doctoral studies, he conducted postdoctoral research on directed evolution under the guidance of Prof Manfred T Reetz at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Germany, one of the world’s top institutions.

In 2010, he was appointed to the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the UFS, where he has since established the field of structural biology, setting up the infrastructure essential for the advancement thereof. This includes equipment, techniques, and methods for determining the three-dimensional structure of proteins. “It is done using protein crystallisation and then X-ray diffraction,” he explains. Most of these X-ray diffraction experiments are then performed at particle accelerators called synchrotrons, such as Diamond Light Source (UK), which can produce intense X-rays.

His current research explores the interface of evolutionary and structure-function relationships of biocatalysts, with a particular focus on their application in green chemistry. Prof Opperman says that understanding both the structure and the function of an enzyme allows one to manipulate it to perform other functions.

Contributing to the broader goals of sustainable development

One of the projects he is working on highlights the potential for sustainable practices in waste management. Prof Opperman is currently part of a European Research Area Network Cofund partnership on Food Systems and Climate (FOSC), which focuses on developing biocatalysts for upcycling waste. An aspect of this work involves studying enzymes that degrade feathers, thereby converting feather waste into useful products such as fertiliser.

Regarding the contribution of his research to the broader goals of sustainable development and environmental protection, he says that enzymes are the base for biotechnology and the bioeconomy. “They can be sustainably produced, the reactions are environmentally friendly, and the resulting products can be classified as natural. There’s no need to use sources that are not sustainable to extract some of these molecules from,” he explains.

His significant contributions to the field are reflected in more than 50 authored and co-authored papers, some of which are published in prestigious journals such as Science, Nature Communications, and Angewandte Chemie. As an NRF B-rated researcher, his work has received funding from various local and international organisations, including industries such as Sasol and the Global Challenges Research Fund.

News Archive

Open letter from Prof Jonathan Jansen to all UFS students

2014-02-22

Dear Students of the University of the Free State

In the past four years there has emerged a new consensus on the three campuses of the University of the Free State (UFS) about the things that divide us – such as racism, sexism and homophobia. Students and campus leaders have worked hard to develop this new consensus in residences and in the open spaces on campus. There can be no doubt that new bonds of friendship have developed across the markers of race, ethnicity, class, religion and sexual orientation. I bear witness to these new solidarities every day on the campus.

You chose a white student to head up the transformation portfolio on the SRC. You chose a black captain to head up the university’s first team in rugby. You chose a white “prime” as head of residence to lead a predominantly black men’s residence. You chose a South African woman of Indian descent as Rag Queen and last week, a black student from Cape Town as the men’s Rag winner—choices not possible and never made before in our campus history. Many of you have intimate friends who come from different social or cultural or religious backgrounds. You learn together, share rooms together, pray together and party together. In other words, in the day to day workings of this university campus, you have demonstrated to campus, city and country that we can overcome the lingering effects of racism and other maladies in this new generation. You have helped create a university community inclusive of people of diverse religions, abilities, class and sexual orientation.

I have said this repeatedly that from time to time this new consensus will be tested – when a minority of students, and they are a small and dwindling minority, still act as if these are the days of apartheid. And when that consensus is tested as it was this week, and as it will be tested in the future, only then we will be able to assess the strength and durability of our progress in creating a new South African campus culture of human togetherness based on respect, dignity and embrace.

The real test of our leadership, including student leadership, is how we respond when our transformation drive is threatened.

Let me say this: I have absolute faith in you, as students of this great university, to stand together in your condemnation of these vile acts of violence and to move together in your determination to maintain the momentum for the Human Project of the University of the Free State. We have come too far to allow a few criminals to derail what you have built together in recent years.

There will, no doubt, be unscrupulous people on all sides of the political spectrum wanting to milk this tragedy for their own narrow purposes. There will be false information, rumours and exaggerations by those who wish to inflame a bad situation to gain mileage for their agendas. That is inevitable in a country that is still so divided.

I ask you, through all of this, to keep perspective. Two or ten or even twenty students behaving badly do not represent 30,000 students; a minority of violent and hateful persons do not represent the ideals, ambitions and commitments of the majority. At the same time, let us be realistic – anyone who thinks you can drive transformation without resistance clearly does not understand the difficult process of change.

The events of the week remind us, however, that we still have a long road to walk in deepening social and academic transformation at our university. Yes, we have invested hundreds of hours in training and mentorship; we have created new structures – such as the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice – to capture the energy and imagination of students driving transformation; we have created many opportunities for students to study and travel on this and other continents to enable cross-cultural learning; we have established formal and informal opportunities to dialogue about difficult issues on and off campus between students and their leaders; and we crafted new curricula to enable teaching and learning on the big questions of our times.

But this is clearly not enough, and so I have decided on the following immediate next steps:

We will meet for several hours next week to think about how we can deepen the transformation of our university after this terrible incident.
We will arrange a University Assembly on the events of the past week so that we speak with one voice on human wrongs and to re-commit to human rights and we will continue with open forum discussions during the months to come.
We will review the entire spectrum of programmes, from orientation to residence life to the undergraduate curriculum, to determine how effective our interventions really are in reaching all students with respect to basic issues of human rights.
We will review our media and communications strategy to determine how far and deep our messages on human rights travel across all sectors of the university community. In this regard it is important that the campus be blanketed on a regular basis with our condemnation of human wrongs and our commitment to human rights.
We will commission the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice to review the events of the past week and make recommendations on how we can improve the campus environment so that all students are protected from harm inside residences, classrooms and in open spaces of the campus.
We will take the questions raised during this week into the academic community and to the general staff of the university so that all personnel also engage with our own roles and responsibilities with respect to campus transformations.
We undertake to make annual report-backs on transformation to all stakeholders in public forums so that students and staff and external communities can track the progress of the university on matters of human rights on campus.

I wish to thank my staff for acting firmly as soon as this tragic event came to our attention. We worked through the night to find and identify the perpetrators. We traced the two students and immediately handed them to the police. They were expelled. And throughout this process we offered counselling and support to the victim of this violent act.

The two former students were expelled and will now face justice in the criminal courts. It is hoped that in the course of time they will come to their senses and seek restoration and reconciliation with the student they so callously harmed. They are not part of the university community anymore.

That is the kind of university we are.

Jonathan D Jansen
Vice-Chancellor and Rector
University of the Free State
20 February 2014

Note: The use of the word ‘campus’ refers to all three campuses of the UFS, namely the Bloemfontein Campus, South Campus and Qwaqwa Campus.

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