I see MoleCules everywhere – In hair, in clothes, in everything. It fascinates me that you can look at a molecule’s chemical structure and modify the bonds and structures to modify the properties of molecules. Then those new structures can be used for something terrible, like bombs, or for something wonderful, like foods and medicines.”
Sitting in his office at UCT, Chemistry Professor Kelly Chibale, founder and director of Africa’s first integrated drug discovery centre, UCT’s Holistic Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3D), spoke about his love for organic chemistry, which started during his childhood in Zambia.
“I simply fell in love with it. It was just like the way I fell in love with my wife Bertha. When you fall in love, you don’t plan!”
He related how, despite his background of extreme poverty in Zambia – and some serious setbacks in childhood – he was exposed to an excellent education system which made all the difference to his life.
“At high school we had an excellent chemistry teacher. The government of Kenneth Kaunda brought great teachers from countries like the UK and India, really educated people. They became role models.
“When I look back, I know I was born to be a chemist.”
Nearly ten years ago Prof Chibale founded UCT’s H3D, which hosts more than 60 people, including staff and post-doctoral scientists. It is effectively run like an innovative pharmaceutical company albeit within an academic environment. In 2017 it became the first African centre to lead an international team that discovered and put an antimalarial drug into Phase II human clinical trials. This drug is being watched closely globally as it has the potential to cure, block transmission and protect from malaria in a single dose.
Denne historien er fra November 2019-utgaven av Noseweek.
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Denne historien er fra November 2019-utgaven av Noseweek.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Lennie The Liquidator Faces R500,000 Defamation Suit
After losing his cool when his fees were questioned
Panel Beater De Luxe
Danmar Autobody and its erstwhile directors get a serious panel beating in court papers. Corruption and theft are said to have destroyed the firm chaired by Nelson Mandela’s eldest daughter, leaving 200 workers destitute and threatening to kill.
Meet Covid Diarist Ronald Wohlman
Ronald Wohlman – EX SOUTH African copywriter, author, and actor – never dreamt that his lockdown diaries, written on Facebook and followed by people all over the world – would become his “life’s work”.
A Picture Of Peace?
Beware: Appearances can be deceptive
Flogging A (Battery-Driven) Dead Horse
Why plug-in vehicles are not all they’re cracked up to be– and, likely, never will be
Everybody Drinks Corona
I am hesitant to go Into the pub today. Not because it’s illegal, but there is a crème colored 1985 Mercedes 300D parked behind the pine tree. This means the devil is inside; that’s what we call Dr. De Villiers. You don’t know whether you will encounter the good doctor with the charming bedside manner or the violent, bipolar bully. The problem is, most of the time, you can never be sure which it is, so it’s best to always keep a social distance.
Never Take A Hypochondriac To A Pandemic
From Ronald Wohlman’s New York Corona Diary
The money train
Transnet in court battle with liquidators of Gupta-linked audit firm over R57m in ‘corrupt’ payments and invoices
‘He's no pharmaceutical genius, he's a vulture'
Pharma con seeks prison release to ‘help find Covid cure’
Bush school – A memoir
OUR SCHOOL WAS IN THE MIDDLE of the bush, ten miles from the nearest town in the harsh beauty of the Zimbabwean highveld. It started life in World War II as No 26 EFTS Guinea Fowl, a Royal Air Force elementary flying training school and I arrived there in 1954, just seven years after it became an all-white co-ed state boarding school.