A group of academics, postdoctoral fellows and students from the department attended the SASBMB congress held from 7-10 July at the Ranch Resort in Polokwane. This was the largest congress of its kind in the history of the society and the first time the congress was held in Limpopo province. At the congress, Prof Özlem Bishop delivered an invited talk about missense mutations and how these influence drug resistance and drug metabolism.

Prof Adrienne Edkins also gave a talk about the Hsp90-Hsp70 organizing protein and its role in Karposi- sarcoma associated Herpes Virus (KSHV) lytic replication. Drs Candace Davison (FemCR 2 U) and Wayde Veldman (RUBI) and Mr Teboho Mdiniswa gave oral presentations and Ms Anita Ndabeni (BioBRU) presented a poster. Invited international plenary speakers included Profs Greg Blatch (Australia), a Visiting Professor and former staff member of the department, Kiaran Kirk (Australia), Matthias Mayer (Germany), Stanley Mukanganyama (Zimbabwe), Nikolai Kuhnert (Germany) and Tomohisa Ogawa (Japan).

At the General Meeting of the society, Dr Jo de la Mare (Head of department) was inducted as President,
having previously served as Secretary (2018-2022) and Vice-President (2022-2024). It was also announced that the society would be hosting the congress of its parent body, the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, in Cape Town in 2027. This will be the first time that the congress will be held on the African continent.

From left: Dr Candace Davison, Prof Dean Goldring (UKZN), Prof Adrienne Edkins and Prof Aileen Boshoff at the congress gala dinner.

Miss Anita Ndabeni presenting her poster in the Drug Discovery category.