MULTIDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS CREATE “BEAUTIFUL” RESEARCH
Dr Thavendran Govender from the School of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) delivered a public lecture on October 28 on the advantages of multidisciplinary collaboration on research projects.
Dr Govender is one of the four project leaders in the GGKM research group. The group is a multi-disciplinary team of biochemists, organic chemists, inorganic chemists and pharmaceutical chemists at UKZN. It was founded in January 2007 and focuses on creating the next generation of scientists in Africa. Its research focuses on the design, synthesis and evaluation of compounds targeting HIV, XDR TB, cancer, Type II Diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and asymmetric catalysis.
In his lecture, Dr Govender said that collaborating with experts from the various fields creates “beautiful research” which can be turned into a profit for the University. The GGKM group through its various collaborative projects is committed to finding cures for all the diseases in their current projects. The group has already identified patentable compounds for HIV, XDR TB and cancer. The success of the HIV project is attributed to the multi-disciplinary approach of synthetic chemistry, biochemistry, computational chemistry and biophysics. The project on cancer was made possible with collaborators in organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry and biochemistry.
Dr Govender cited the XDR TB project as a good example of how far a drug discovery project can be realized at UKZN. In this project, compounds were designed, synthesised and evaluated for biological activity through collaboration between medical scientists, pharmacologist and chemists. The best compounds have now been completed and animal toxicology testing done.
Future projects include Peptides For Africa, which is a collaboration between the Schools of Pharmacy and Pharmacology and Chemistry at UKZN. The group is producing peptides at half the price of their nearest competitor. The second is a project with the South African Biotyper Laboratories where the groups aims to provide same day biotyping of micro organisms. The third project is through the South African Proteonics Platform whereby all micro organisms passing through hospitals will be monitored. In this way, specific strains can be observed and hopefully prevented before an outbreak.
Dr Govender concluded by encouraging the audience to engage in multi-disciplinary projects. “Multi-disciplinary projects … need not be scary but seen as an exciting journey that we researchers were born to take,” he said.
Dr Govender began his career in 1995 at the former University of Durban-Westville where he studied for a BSc degree, majoring in Chemistry and Biochemistry. He went on to obtain Honours, Masters and PhD degrees in the fields of novel cage amino acids and chiral macrocycles.