Stellenbosch University
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IPB’s winning science team a boost to technical terminology
Author: B Loedolff
Published: 05/12/2017

Two MSc students from the Institute for Plant Biotechnology (IPB) of the Department of Genetics at Stellenbosch University (SU), Melt Hugo and Janto Pieters (under the guidance of their supervisors, Drs Shaun Peters and Bianke Loedolff), proved this year that science knows no bounds where language is concerned. Messrs Hugo and Pieters attended the annual Student Symposium in Science 2017 at the University of Pretoria (UP), where all the work had to be presented in Afrikaans – no mean feat. Especially for Mr Hugo, a second-language speaker of Afrikaans, who presented his work on exotic sugars (the raffinose family of oligosaccharides) in poster format, following this up with a talk of four minutes on the topic. Mr Hugo triumphantly returned with two prizes: The AfriForum prize for an exceptional contribution by a non-mother-tongue speaker of Afrikaans and the Ctext award for a contribution with merit for his poster. Mr Pieters was selected to talk on his work on metagenomic libraries and the search for biopolymer-forming sugars that can serve as prebiotic substances. Mr Pieters, who could practise his talk (supplemented by an iron, ironing board and TV) only the evening before the conference, walked away equally triumphantly with a science merit prize, the Blue Stallion award (Sigma Plot), for his contribution. As if this were not enough, both participants' presentations are to be published in the South African Journal of Science and Technology in expanded and in a poster summary format.

Messrs Hugo and Pieters challenged not only their own limits of language in science but also proved that you can represent science on any platform. The two are looking forward to obtaining their MSc degrees in December 2018, after which they plan to tackle the PhD road in science. May we see more of the pioneering work of these two versatile SU students in the future.

 

Photo: MSc students and their supervisors at the science poster presented by Mr Melt Hugo at the Student Symposium in Science 2017 at UP. From left to right, Dr Shaun Peters, Mr Melt Hugo, Mr Janto Pieters and Dr Bianke Loedolff.