BY Nkosazana Ngwadla
An University of Pretoria academic has been selected to be part of the Visiting Fellowship Programme facilitated by the Africa Oxford Initiative, a cross-university platform that enables collaborations between researchers at African institutions and those at the University of Oxford.
The fellowship programme gives exceptional African researchers the opportunity to work on a project of their choice with Oxford-based researchers.
Biochemist Dr Phanankosi Moyo, a postdoctoral fellow at UP’s Biodiscovery Centre in the Department of Chemistry, will be affiliated with the University of Oxford for a year, during which time they will participate in 10 months of virtual engagement and spend two months at the English university.
“Being a recipient of this fellowship is a great honour and privilege,” Dr Moyo says. “It is an opportunity to engage with leading scholars and it gives me access to state-of-the-art resources. I’d like to express my profound gratitude to the Africa Oxford Initiative and UP for this invaluable opportunity.
I’m particularly indebted to my postdoctoral supervisor, Professor Vinesh Maharaj, and our collaborators. This fellowship is a personal motivator for me to continue working towards achieving my personal advancement as an aspiring academic and researcher within the drug discovery field.”
Dr Moyo’s project is set to commence on 1 December this year. Part of his research will be conducted at UP’s Biodiscovery Centre under the supervision of Prof Maharaj, and during his two-month stint in Oxford, he will be working in the laboratory of Prof Christopher Schofield at the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research.
Image and source: UP
