Nobel laureate to mentor top UCT scientist

Dr Mohlopheni Jackson Marakalala of UCT's Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine (IIDMM) has won the annual Sydney Brenner Fellowship Award, offered by the Academy of Science for South Africa (ASSAf).

Marakalala joined the IIDMM in 2008 as a postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Professor Gordon Brown, and is currently investigating the role of Dectin-1 in innate immunity to various infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, fungal infections, and recently, the role of this receptor in anti-cancer immunity.

The award was established when Dr Sydney Brenner donated a portion of his 2002 Nobel Prize to ASSAf to permit the academy (in partnership with the National Academy of Sciences in the US) to offer a research fellowship to an outstanding young scientist working in South Africa.

The fellowship includes mentorship by Brenner, both during and after tenure.