Postgraduate students from the Department of Physiological Sciences at SU walked away with several awards at the microscopy conference hosted by the Microscopy Society of Southern Africa in December 2016.

MSc student Jurgen Kriel was awarded the Wirsam scientific prize for the best student paper in Life Sciences; Phd student Dumisile Lumkwana received the Wirsam light microscopy prize for the best presentation; and Yigael Powrie walked away with the SA scientific award for the best presentation in confocal microscopy for his MSc research.

Dr Ben Loos, their supervisor and head of the neuro-research group in the department, says the students had to implement innovative microscopy techniques to unravel research questions around Alzheimer's disease and neuronal cell death, as well as brain cancer.

"This is a wonderful achievement and testimony of all the hard and excellent work being done in this research group," he says.

On the photos, above, an image from Dumisile Lumkwana's research into Alzheimer's disease. From left to right, Jurgen Kriel, Dumisile Lumkwana and Yigael Powrie.