Instrumental Access Shipment Update:
University of Namibia

Thanks to your support, scientists at the University of Namibia (UNAM) School of Pharmacy have equipment to train the country’s first Pharmacy Technician students!

With their Instrumental Access equipment, researchers at the School of Pharmacy will also accelerate drug discovery work to combat the global rise of drug-resistant infections.

An Instrumental Access shipment containing 148 pieces of lab equipment arrived at the UNAM School of Pharmacy in Windhoek, Namibia. In addition to being the newest pharmacy school on the African continent and the first School of Pharmacy in the country, UNAM is Seeding Labs’ first Instrumental Access partner in Namibia!

Professor Tim Rennie, associate dean of the School of Pharmacy, reports that equipment will help foster interdisciplinary collaborations across UNAM. It will also enhance new postgraduate programs in regulatory and industrial pharmacy, which rely heavily on sophisticated equipment.

Microscopes from the Instrumental Access shipment have been allocated to the school’s microbiology lab and an HLPC and analytical instruments were deployed to the pharmaceutics lab. These tools increase teaching capacity and provide critical hands-on experience for students.

The Instrumental Access equipment will catalyze research at the School of Pharmacy, where scientists are examining local natural resources in hopes of developing commercially-viable pharmaceutical products.

For example, the antibiotic discovery research group led by Dr. Vetja Haakuria (above) is screening soil samples in search of antibiotic-producing microorganisms. Dr. Haakuria will utilize a plate reader with luminescence from the Instrumental Access shipment to advance research on enzymatic activity.

“The need for novel antibiotics cannot be over-emphasized, given the global emergence of resistance to antibiotics,” Dr. Haakuria says. “Our main constraint was the instruments that enable laboratory research. With this donation, we can go a long way towards addressing this shortcoming. With the equipment in place, the quality of research can only improve.”