Reflecting on another year, the staff at the Central Analytical Facilities are proud to have achieved several positive outcomes during 2017. Plans for new facilities also developed during 2017 ‒ paving the way for an exciting 2018.
Joubert Bracciali Spectacular new Neuromechanics unit Two new CAF units coming in 2018
The Units
Two new senior staff appointments, i.e. Dr Lydia-Marie Joubert and Dr Laura Bracciali have brought extensive international experience to CAF.
Joubert came from Stanford University to manage the Electron Microscopy unit. She spent the last 10 years as professional at the Cell Sciences Imaging Facility at Stanford University (USA) and is excited about her new challenge. “Because of the clinical field I was in at Stanford at both the medical school and bioengineering, I would like to bring in the medical environment into the bigger SU campus" Joubert said.
Bracciali is the new division manager for geochronology at the ICP-MS & XRF unit. She is an Earth Scientist with 8 years of post-doctoral experience of which 4 years spent at the NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory (British Geological Survey), Keyworth, UK. Her main research interests lie in the fields of multi-technique, multi-proxy sedimentary provenance (applied to constraining the co-evolution of continental margins, palaeodrainages and sedimentary basins) and single grain U-(Th)-Pb dating by LA ICP-MS, including the development of the technique and refinement of best practice.
Prof Celia Abolnik from the Poultry Health and Production Research Chair at the University of Pretoria has recently started using the NGS service offered by the DNA Sequencing unit to help in her investigation of avian influenza in South Africa. She is currently performing whole genome sequencing of avian influenza samples collected from across the country, to better understand the diversity in the viral population. Monitoring viral diversity in poultry, hobby birds and wild bird populations is an important part of understanding the spread of the outbreak of avian influenza and this will assist the development of future control strategies.
The CT Scanner unit has this year further consolidated its track record as a leading facility for X-ray tomography applications research, which is evidenced by the wide diversity of academic work completed during the year – students completing, papers published and international conference presentations. Among these, one particular highlight has been the work with Dr Chris Broeckhoven, Prof Cang Hui and in collaboration with Dr Anton du Plessis – where the strength of body armour of girdled lizards were investigated by high resolution microCT, mechanical simulations and physical mechanical testing – this work was published and recently reported in a report in the Journal of Experimental Biology as well as on http://jeb.biologists.org/content/220/21/3840.1
Following good financial figures for 2016, the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance unit decided against any rate increase for both internal and external clients for 2017. Despite a decrease in internal demand, the unit managed to show significant growth on both their solution and solid state external client income. This allowed the unit to break even this year, and will probably result in another zero percent rate increase for 2018, despite rising maintenance costs.
In June the new branch of the Neuromechanics unit was launched in a spectacular new laboratory space at the Coetzenburg Sports Science Complex. The development of the lab will have a direct impact on sports performance at Stellenbosch University, through provision of a variety of tests on athletes of the Maties Sport High Performance Programme. The laboratory will also support a very broad range of research in the fields of biomechanical engineering, sports science, physiology and physiotherapy.
At the Mass Spectrometry Unit the new ultra-performance convergence chromatography system was the star instrument of the year and was used by a large number of postgraduate students, one of them, a PhD student of Dr Karl Storbeck, Jonathan Quanson, investigated the role of adrenal steroid hormones in the development of castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). This lead to new achievements in steroid analysis. Quanson et al have developed and published a high-throughput method to separate and quantify nineteen structurally related androgen precursors and androgens, which have been implicated in the development of CRPC.
A highlight for Fluorescence Microscopy was hosting the very first ISAC Cape Town Flow Cytometry Workshop, in partnership with the International Society for the Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC) and BD Biosciences in April. Eight internationally acclaimed experts in flow cytometry, with the assistance from local flow cytometrists, conducted lectures and wetlab training courses and demonstartions on a range of topics.
General
More than 1900 clients registered on the new CAF database system, which was introduced in March. With the data captured CAF provides the NRF with comprehensive information about all users of NEP equipment. 2017 Data shows that, to date, CAF has provided services to 1629 academic clients and 295 clients from industry. The academic clients consist of 987 from Stellenbosch University, 522 from other South African Universities, 21 from foreign universities, 64 from SA Research Institutions that are not part of a university and 35 undefined. Of the 1629 academic clients, 940 are post-graduate students.
New developments
Two new CAF units will come into being during 2018. The Vibrational Spectroscopy unit will open early in 2018 and will be managed by Dr Janine Colling. The creation of the unit has been made possible by an NEP equipment grant to Prof Marena Manley and Dr Paul Williams of the Department of Food Science. The unit will be housed in the Food Science building.
Another exciting opportunity has been created by DST support for the Nuclear Medicine Research Initiative (NuMeRI), of which Profs Annare Ellmann and James Warwick from the division of Nuclear Medicine were part. NuMeRI and Stellenbosch University funding will create the Node for Infection Imaging (NII) at Tygerberg Hospital. The NII will be managed by CAF and will provide a dedicated PET/CT scanning facility for research. This development is critical to Tuberculosis research in the Western Cape and has been made possible by collaboration between the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA), from whence Dr Jan Rijn Zeevaart champions the NuMeRI initiative, SU Faculty of Health Sciences, SU Division of Nuclear Medicine, Tygerberg Hospital, Western Cape Health and CAF. Construction work on the new facility will begin early in 2018.
www.sun.ac.za/caf
