Sweet Success in South Africa
Dr. Annegret Stark and colleagues at the University of KwaZulu-Natal are leading efforts in South Africa to use biowaste from sugar cane manufacturing.
Dr. Annegret Stark and colleagues at the University of KwaZulu-Natal are leading efforts in South Africa to use biowaste from sugar cane manufacturing.
When Dr. Jules-Roger Kuiate applied for an Instrumental Access award, the Department of Biochemistry had some promising research in progress on medicinal plants and tropical diseases. But the department had little infrastructure to efficiently carry these projects to their conclusions.
Five years later, they are collaborating with departments across campus and the Ministry of Higher Education.
Five years ago, the Chemistry Department at the Dar es Salaam University College of Education was losing students and outsourcing sample analysis to other facilities. Now, thanks to Instrumental Access equipment, students are completing their studies and researchers are publishing new work on pollution in Tanzania’s freshwater lakes.
Though no one was entirely prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists around the globe were required to respond. The world needed the ability to test and contact trace; labs that had the necessary equipment stepped up to answer this urgent call. Because the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) received a 2018 Instrumental Access award, Dr. Gama Bandawe and his lab already had most of the equipment they needed to join the fight against COVID-19.
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Armenia, Arsen Arakelyan, PhD, director of the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, had a particular challenge. He and his lab were tasked with delivering reliable COVID-19 diagnostic tests to fulfill the increased demand for testing, while considering the existing peculiarities of national infrastructure.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not yet hit Armenia as hard as some other countries. Instrumental Access awardee Arsen Arakelyan, PhD, and colleagues have plans to keep the virus in check by using equipment from Seeding Labs in conjunction with a significant investment from the government of Armenia.
In March 2019, Cyclone Idai became one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the Southern hemisphere. It ravaged Malawi and neighboring countries, affecting an estimated 3 million people. With equipment from Instrumental Access, Dr. Gama Bandawe of the Malawi University of Science and Technology, was poised to respond with the necessary scientific tools in place.
Thanks to our donors and supporters like you, Instrumental Access equipment has arrived at the University of Zimbabwe ??! Get a first-hand look at the equipment’s arrival here…
Across Jamaica, disease-carrying mosquitoes are evading efforts to reduce their population by developing resistance to the most commonly used insecticides. Their clever defense has renewed the urgent quest for new, effective methods of eliminating mosquitoes. Dr. Rupika Delgoda, head of the Natural Products Institute (NPI) at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Jamaica, believes that a solution lies within Jamaica’s diverse ecosystem…