UCT team wins Africa-focused seed funding
Research could help restrict spread of TB
A TEAM from UCT is among the winners of new seed funding which will be used to fight the spread of tuberculosis.
The Imperial College London and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently announced the winners of their first Africa-focused seed fund.
The funded projects will bring scientists together from Imperial, MIT and partner institutions in Africa to work on infectious disease, high energy physics and eco-friendly refrigerants.
The MIT-Africa-Imperial College London Seed Fund is worth $100 000 (R1.4 million) in total.
UCT’s winning project will monitor TB patients – while seated in a telephone box-like device – to see how TB is spread by coughing and talking.
The funding will allow researchers at MIT and Imperial to explore the use of advanced fluorescence labelling – causing live bacteria to glow in a manner that will increase their visibility under a microscope.
The research could help restrict the spread of TB in the future by helping doctors to determine which patients are most infectious.
UCT’s Professor Digby Warner said: “This collaboration is very exciting as it offers the potential to speed up detection of viable TB aerosols, thereby increasing the efficacy of therapeutic interventions which can be targeted to infectious individuals in real time.”
Imperial’s vice-president, Professor Maggie Dallman, said: “These exciting projects bring together teams from three continents to further our understanding in physics, infectious disease and energy.
“Imperial’s excellence arises from attracting talented people and working with leading institutions from across many different regions and we are eager to grow and strengthen our collaborations with partners in Africa.”
MIT-Africa initiative director Professor Hazel Sive emphasised the quality of MIT-Africa-Imperial collaborations.
“The funded projects bring together investigators of the highest calibre. We look forward to promoting this wonderful opportunity at top universities across African countries.
“MIT has set Africa as a priority region for global engagement, and such high-impact joint research programmes contribute to strengthening mutually beneficial connections with African colleagues,” Sive said.
Other winners include a team from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Through this project, researchers are aiming to advance knowledge and understanding of string theory – the idea that fundamental particles are not point-like dots, but tiny strings.
The study of solutions to string theory that may describe the universe has led to difficult problems that require new ideas from geometry and computation.
The researchers from collaborating institutions have complementary skills and the funding will enable conferences to share knowledge and expertise.
A team from the University of Pretoria won for their work on augmented boiling with nano-engineered surfaces and eco-friendly refrigerants.
The boiling of fluids, such as refrigerants or water, is a very effective way to transfer heat and is therefore employed in a wide range of applications.