Microbiology
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About Us

Welcome to the Department of Microbiology!


Department of Microbiology 2016

The Department of Microbiology's historical roots can be traced back to 1918 when Plant Pathology was recognised as a field of expertise in the Faculty of Agrisciences. Today the department has an academic staff component of 16  full-time rsearchers, extraordinary professors and research associates, working in nine research groups with their own state-of-the-art laboratories.

Currently, the department boasts an annual intake of 10 to 15 BSc Honours students and a senior postgraduate team of 30 to 35 MSc students, 10 to 15 PhD students and 6 to 10 postdoctoral fellows. Between 25 and 35 research articles per year are published in highly esteemed international journals. The consistent delivery of high quality publications and a high level of teaching and research is reflected in the excellent NRF evaluations of staff.

Staff of the department actively participate in a wide variety of national and international activities. Several staff members serve on the board of accredited journals, including Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Beneficial Microbes, Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, International Journal of Food Microbiology, Journal of Applied Microbiology, Microbial Ecology, FEMS Microbiology Letters, Probiotics and Antimicrobial Proteins and South African Journal or Enology and Viticulture. Staff members also serve on the Board of the South African Society for Microbiology, the Royal Society of South Africa as well as the committee of the International Union of Microbiology Societies (IUMS) and several other national and international scientific committees.

The success of the department attributed to a motivated team, an excellent infrastructure and excellent financial support from the NRF, Innovation Fund, THRIP, South Africa's National Energy Research Institute (SANERI) Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), Medical Research Council and the water Research Commission. It also prides itself on excellent financial support from industrial partners and the closure of major research contracts.

For more information about the department view the Faculty of Science's Annual Reports.