David Gammon, Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Science at the University of Cape Town
authors of the recent Times Higher Education Supplement article 'Winning the War of Independence' on differences between higher education in the US and UK.
The interest in observing, studying, analysing and utilizing the flora of South Africa takes place in the context of a unique biodiversity coupled with traditions of indigenous knowledge in the communities that are most closely linked to the land and its resources. In this talk, examples will be given from the work of ourselves and others, of approaches ranging across the spectrum from phytochemistry to bioexploration and the search for new medicines to treat the diseases of Africa (malaria, TB, parasitic diseases, etc). The evolution of our own thinking will be described, culminating as it does in our most recent work using the "Screens to Nature" technologies introduced by Ilya Raskin and colleagues under the umbrella of GIBEX (the Global Institute for Bio-Exploration). The challenges in relation to funding opportunities, political realities and the provision of adequate health care in South Africa will be discussed.
David Gammon obtained his PhD in structural glycoprotein chemistry at UCT in 1985, and completed post-doctoral fellowships in synthetic glycoconjugate vaccines in Toronto, Canada, before taking up an academic position at UCT in 1991. He teaches organic and medicinal chemistry, and his current research interests range from the medicinal chemistry of bio-active carbohydrates to development of new catalytic reactions in carbohydrate chemistry and the investigation of the indigenous flora of South Africa from a phytochemical and ethnopharmaceutical perspective.
© 2008
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