The proteomics community of South African came together for a week of proteomics events in the month of August 2018. In this week, two events organised by the ACGT, CSIR, DILPOMICS and the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand took place. The Advanced Proteomics Workshop was facilitated between the 20th and 22nd of August 2018; which was followed by the South African Proteomics Symposium a day later. Both these events were hosted at the Wits Parktown Health Sciences Campus.
The proteomics week kicked off with the Advanced Proteomics Workshop, which was facilitated by three world experts in the field. Each facilitator gave a series of lectures and hands-on exercises in the field which were highly respected for. In the three days dedicated to the workshop, the delegates were taught different aspect of Spatial Proteomics, Clinical Proteomics and Quality Control. The workshop began with Prof Kathryn Lilley (Research Group Head and Director, Cambridge Centre for Proteomics, University of Cambridge) taking the delegates through a series of lectures on Quantitative Proteomics and Spatial Proteomics. Included in Prof Lilley’s sessions were tutorials on Experimental Design, which enabled the delegates work on different scenarios to design effective experiments. These tutorials allowed the delegates to think outside the box and helped them think through their own experiments and how they would design them in the future.
Prof Stephen Pennington, a professor of Proteomics and Senior Fellow at the Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research at the University of College Dublin, took over from Prof Lilley and facilitated the Clinical Proteomics section of the workshop.
The last section of the workshop, Quality Control, was presented by Prof David Tabb. David Tabb is a Professor in the Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science at Stellenbosch University. Prof Tabb combined his lectures with tutorials and assisted the delegates to work with real proteomics data.
The workshop was attended by delegates from the following national institutions:
African Health Research Institute
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Centre for Proteomic and Genomic Research
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Fort Hare University
Microsep
The National Health Laboratory Services
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases
Rhodes University
Stellenbosch University
University of Cape Town
University of Johannesburg
University of Pretoria
University of the Western Cape
University of the Witwatersrand
The second part of the proteomics week saw seventy-two delegates gather at the Adler Museum of Medicine (Wits Parktown Health Sciences Campus) to attend the South African Proteomics Symposium.
The symposium was opened by Dr John Becker (ACGT – Centre manager) and Prof Michele Ramsay (Champion: Molecular Biosciences Research Thrust, University of the Witwatersrand). Prof Kathryn Lilley and Prof Stephen Pennington each gave a keynote address followed by presentations from top proteomics researchers in South Africa. These South African researchers represented the following institutions: African Health Research Institute, CSIR, CPGR, Fort Hare University, North West University, Stellenbosch University, University of Cape Town, University of the Western Cape as well as the University of the Witwatersrand. The following event sponsors also gave talks at the symposium: Microsep, Anatech Instruments and Separations. Click here to view the symposium booklet that contains the full programme as well poster abstracts for posters that were displayed at the symposium.
Both the workshop and symposium gave the delegates the platform to interact with world class proteomics researchers and to explore opportunities (postdoctoral fellowships, collaborative opportunities, etc.) that may arise from the proteomics week. This week also provided the delegates with a platform to network with each other for possible future collaborative opportunities- as well as to informally have discussions around the formation of a Proteomics Society of South Africa. The ACGT has made itself available to assist in the establishment of this society. This process will be guided by the proteomics community of South Africa that the society will serve.
The ACGT would like to thank the following sponsors for financial assistance to make the workshop and symposium possible: Anatech, CPGR, DIPLOMICS, inqaba biotec, Microsep, Separations and The Scientific Group.
Story by: The ACGT team, September 2018
For more photos from these events, please visit our Facebook page: ACGT Facebook page
(from left: Prof D. Tabb, Prof K. Lilley and Prof S. Pennington)
