High Office and Awards for Genetics Staff and Students

Academic staff and students of the Department of Genetics have been attending several scientific meetings and receiving honours and awards, reaffirming the quality and standing of research in the Department.

At the Aquaculture Association of Southern Africa’s conference, hosted at Stellenbosch (9- 13 September 2024), Ms Samantha Joao (PhD candidate in Genetics, Supervisor Prof. Clint Rhode) received the Best Student Oral Presentation Award for her talk, entitled: “Examining growth in dusky kob (argyrosomus japonicus) via differential transcriptomic analysis of gill tissue”.

Doctoral candidate Ms Jessica Winn (Supervisor: Prof. Aletta Bester-van der Merwe) and recent doctoral graduate Dr Kelvin Hull (Supervisor: Prof. Clint Rhode) was awarded the South African Genetics Society’s(SAGS) Postgraduate Award for Best Published Paper in the categories for Population & Evolutionary Genetics, and Functional & Developmental Genetics, respectively.

Ms Winn for her paper, “A comprehensive phylogenomic study unveils evolutionary patterns and challenges in the mitochondrial genomes of Carcharhiniformes: A focus on Triakidae” published in the journal Genomics this year; and Dr Hull for his work entitled, “Gene expression differentials driven by mass rearing and artificial selection in black soldier fly colonies”, published in the journal Insect Molecular Biology last year.

The awards where formally presented at the gala dinner of the joint conference of the South African Genetics Society and the South African Society for Bioinformatics (SASBi), Bio2024, hosted by the University of Pretoria (23-25 September 2024).

The SAGS Postgraduate Awards entails a cash prize, free conference registrations, and the prestigious Hofmeyr-Van Schaick Medal (Bronze). Prof. Clint Rhode was also re-elected, for a second term in office, as the President of the SAGS at the society’s general meeting, also held during the conference.