UCT researchers and executives were among those who recently met with Dr Richard Lane and Sir Dominic Cadbury of the Wellcome Trust, who were in the country on a whistle-stop tour to meet with those on its International Senior Fellows programme.

During their stopover at UCT, the two attended presentations on the status of biomedical sciences in South Africa and were updated on the research activities of the Health Sciences Faculty and its new Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine (IIDMM), among other things. They also got to meet with the Trust's UCT senior fellows, Professor Girish Kotwal, Associate Professor Frank Brombacher, Associate Professor Hugh Patterton and new fellow, Dr Heinrich Hoppe.

Fifth fellow, Associate Professor Peter Meissner, was away at the time.

One of the reasons for the visit was to provide Lane, who heads the Trust's international programmes, an opportunity to introduce Cadbury, the Chairperson of the Trust's Board of Governors, to the expanse of Trust funding in South Africa.

"As the International Senior Fellows Programme is one of our major international activities, I thought it would be useful for Sir Dominic Cadbury to not only meet with some senior fellows and see their work, but also for him to understand the significance and role played by internationally funded senior fellows in a South African university," said Lane.

"We also want to use the opportunity to reiterate the importance of partnerships with institutions such as UCT and the South African Medical Research Council in supporting centres of excellence."

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