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Prof Jared McDonald achieves his 2020 goal by obtaining first NRF rating

06 February 2025 | Story André Damons | Photo Supplied

Dr Jared McDonald — Prof Jared McDonald, Assistant Dean: Faculty of The Humanities at the University of the Free State, obtained his first National Research Foundation rating in the C2 category.

Obtaining his first National Research Foundation (NRF) rating has been the goal of Prof Jared McDonald, Assistant Dean: Faculty of The Humanities at the University of the Free State (UFS), since 2020 when he was selected for the UFS Transforming the Professoriate Mentoring Programme.

Prof McDonald obtained a C2 rating recently and credits the programme, under the leadership of Dr Henriëtte van den Berg, who provided invaluable support and mentorship, for this achievement. This rating recognises Prof McDonald as an established researcher and he may enjoy some international recognition for the quality and impact of his recent research outputs.

“I am delighted to have received a C2 rating. I was hoping to obtain a C2, so when I received confirmation, it felt really good. Since being recruited to the Transforming the Professoriate Programme I have been focused on producing a series of quality journal articles, and importantly, my first monograph. At times it was a struggle to balance the demands of being Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Humanities along with my teaching responsibilities,” says Prof McDonald.

He says obtaining the rating would not have been possible without the interventions of the programme, which assisted him in securing funding for a sabbatical. The encouragement of colleagues and family was equally valuable in helping him to keep his eye on the goal.

Research

As a nineteenth-century historian, Prof McDonald’s, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, research includes topics ranging from the London Missionary Society’s missions to the San as well as the role of controversial missionaries in influencing public discourse on the right to legal equality and social inclusion for indigenous subjects of the British Crown. Another topic is the ways in which evangelical-humanitarian discourse inadvertently provided the justification for the transfer of San children to Cape colonial society.

“In my publications, the key actors, including Khoesan, are revealed to have been exercising agency in response to a social and political context that was not of their own choosing, but to which they had to respond. The contradictions of the period, coupled with the prospects for blurring the social boundaries of an otherwise strict hierarchical society, provided the means for social manoeuvre and options for resistance from within the confines of the colonial state. I am continuing to explore these ideas in a series of upcoming journal articles and book chapters,” he says.

The pressure, says Prof McDonald, is already on to retain his rating, and hopefully improve it, when it comes up for review in five years’ time. He is currently working on his second monograph, which is a historical biography of a controversial, but fascinating, missionary who played a notable role in South African history in the early nineteenth century. “The worth of any historical biography lies in the biographer’s ability to shed light on the circumstances, contingencies, and contradictions that shaped the contours of the protagonist’s life, thus illuminating the historical context,” concludes Prof McDonald.

He seeks to relate his research to his approach to teaching by exploring innovative ways of making the past relevant to students today. This is motivated by the conviction that the elucidation of possibilities of agency in the past raises the prospect for students to engage with the meanings and possibilities of agency in the present.

News Archive

Cardiology Unit involved in evaluation of drug for rare genetic disease

2013-01-04

Front from the left, are: Marinda Karsten (study coordinator and registered nurse),
Laumarie de Wet (clinical technologist), Charmaine Krahenbuhl (study coordinator and radiographer),
Lorinda de Meyer (administrator), Andonia Page (study coordinator and enrolled nurse);
back Dr Gideon Visagie (sub investigator), Dr Derick Aucamp (sub investigagtor),
Prof. Hennie Theron, (principal investigator) and Dr Wilhelm Herbst (sub investigator).
Photo: Supplied
09 January 2013

The Cardiology Research Unit at the University of the Free State (UFS) contributed largely to the evaluation of the drug Juxtapid (lomitapide), which was developed by the Aegerion pharmaceutical company and approved by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration). Together with countries such as die USA, Canada and Italy, the UFS’ Unit recruited and evaluated the most patients (5 of 29) for the study since 2008.

The drug was evaluated in persons with so-called familial homozygous hypercholesterolemia (HoFH).

Following its approval by the FDA, Juxtapid is now a new treatment option for patients suffering from HoFH. The drug operates in a unique way which brings about dramatic improvements in cholesterol counts.

According to Prof. Hennie Theron, Associate Professor in the Department of Cardiology at the UFS and Head of the Cardiology Contract Research Unit, HoFH is a serious, rare genetic disease which affects the function of the receptor responsible for the removal of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (“bad” cholesterol) from the body. Damage to the LDL receptor function leads to extremely high levels of blood cholesterol. HoFH patients often develop premature and progressive atherosclerosis, which is a narrowing or blockage of the arteries.

“HoFH is a genetically transmitted disease and the most severe form of hypercholesterolemia. Patients often need a coronary artery bypass or/and aortic valve replacement before the age of 20. Mortality is extremely high and death often occurs before the third decade of life. Existing conventional cholesterol-lowering medication is unsuccessful in achieving normal target cholesterol values in this group of patients.

“The only modality for treatment is plasmapheresis (similar to dialysis in patients with renal failure). Even with this type of therapy the results are relatively unsatisfactory because it is very expensive and the plasmapheresis has to be performed on a regular basis.

“The drug Juxtapid, as currently evaluated, has led to a dramatic reduction in cholesterol values and normal values were achieved in several people. No existing drug is nearly as effective.

“The drug represents a breakthrough in the treatment of familial homozygous hypercholesterolemia. The fact that it has been approved by the FDA, gives further impetus to the findings,” says Prof. Theron.

In future further evaluation will be performed in other forms of hypocholesterolemia.

According to Prof. Theron, the findings of the study, as well as the recent successful FDA evaluation, once again confirms the fact that the UFS’ Cardiology Contract Research Unit is doing outstanding work.

Since its inception in 1992, the Unit has already been involved in more than 60 multi-centre, international phase 2 and 3 drug studies. Several of these studies, including the abovementioned study, really affected the way in which cardiology functions.

The UFS’ Cardiology Contract Research Unit is being recognised nationally and internationally for its high quality of work and is constantly approached for their involvement in new studies.

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