Rhodes Centenary issueThe small University of Rhodes (6142 students), in the rural city of Grahamstown, was established in 1904 as a result of a £50 000 grant from the Rhodes Trust in Oxford. It grew out of St Andrew’s College, which provided the first four professors and 41 students. The first paper from Rhodes in the South African Journal of Science (then called the Report of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science) was by Selmar Schonland, one of the university’s founding fathers. Entitled: ‘Biological and ethnological observations on a trip to the N.E. Kalahari’, it appeared in 1904. The following pages provide a glimpse into the growth and achievements of various departments in the faculties of Science and Pharmacy and associated institutes a century after the university was born

Woods, D R

Rhodes Repository (SEALS)

Science after a century atRhodes UniversityTHE SMALL UNIVERSITY OF RHODES (6142students), in the rural city of Grahams-town, was established in 1904 as a result ofa £50 000 grant from the Rhodes Trust inOxford. It grew out of St Andrew’s Col-lege, which provided the first four profes-sors and 41 students. The first paper fromRhodes in the South African Journal ofScience (then called the Report of the SouthAfrican Association for the Advancement ofScience) was by Selmar Schonland, one ofthe university’s founding fathers. Enti-tled: ‘Biological and ethnological observa-tions on a trip to the N.E. Kalahari’, itappeared in 1904. The following pagesprovide a glimpse into the growth andachievements of various departments inthe faculties of Science and Pharmacy andassociated institutes a century after theuniversity was born.Brown and his colleagues document thehundred-year history of the Department ofChemistry, which currently conducts re-search in the fields of electrochemistry,photochemistry, organic and inorganicsynthesis, thermal analysis and marinenatural products. It has emerging strengthsin medicinal chemistry with research on thedevelopment of novel light-sensitive sys-tems for treating cancer and for characteriz-ing and synthesizing bio-active naturalproducts from indigenous marine algae andinvertebrates. Tebello Nyokong (winner ofthe 2004 Shoprite Checkers / SABC 2 Womenof the Year Award in the Science and Tech-nology category) is researching cancer diag-nosis and treatment, and the work oforganic chemists Kaye and Davies-Colemanfeatures in this issue.The Physics Department has for manyyears worked in the area of radio astronomyand is playing a leadership role in the na-tional Square Kilometre Array bid. The de-partment also collaborates with theHartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observa-tory and other radio astronomy institutesworldwide. Apart from star-gazing, resultsfrom research ‘closer to our home planet’appear in the pages that follow. Haggardreports on electron precipitation effects overthe South Atlantic Anomaly region;McKinnell and Poole report on researchfindings concerning the ionosphere oversouthern Africa, which is part of a long-established interest; Chithambo presentsresults in the area of the thermolumines-cence processes in quartz. These papersreflect the department’s work in experimen-tal and computational aspects of aeronomy,radio astronomy, electronics and materialsscience.The Department of Geology, establishedin 1905, was the fifth department at Rhodes.It has a focus on economic and explorationgeology. Three aspects of its research appearin this issue. Jacob et al. and Marsh describefeatures of the Grahamstown area, whilePrevec et al. move further afield.Collectively, the life sciences form thegreatest research component of the univer-sity, and the biological and environmentalsciences have a strong tradition. The diverseinterests in the Department of Zoology &Entomology are reflected in the range ofpapers included here. McQuaid andFroneman report on the progress of nearlytwo decades of research by the SouthernOcean Group. Hepburn and Radloff fromthe departments of Zoology & Entomologyand Statistics, respectively, are long-termcollaborators on bees. In this issue theypresent results from a morphometric analy-sis of honeybee populations, on whichHepburn is a world authority. Craig andHulley report on eye coloration in passerinebirds, and Villet et al. use DNA-based tech-niques to address evolutionary and biogeo-graphical relationships in the African cicadagenus, Platypleura.The Botany Department has a long andrespected history, and well-known plantscientists have passed through its historicalbuildings, as elucidated by Lubke and Brinkin this issue. The department in 2004 offers amultidisciplinary approach to researchingplant life. Barker et al. have used DNAsequencing to solve a long-standing taxo-nomic problem of generic delimitation andtaxonomic boundaries in Africa’s yellow-wood trees, Botha et al. report on their latestfindings of plant structure at the ultramicro-scopic level, and Peter et al. examine thepollination biology of a poorly studiedgroup of plants commonly known as ‘vygies’that are endemic to the Eastern Cape.The Department of Ichthyology & Fish-eries Science, the only one of its kind at aSouth African university, specializes inresearch into the management of fish andother resources, fish population dynamicsand aquaculture. This research directlyinfluences fisheries in southern and EastAfrica. Oosthuizen and her colleagues writehere on octopus genetics and management,while Rutaisire et al. on a cichlid speciesin Lake Victoria offer a more theoreticalapproach.The papers by Palmer et al. and Hughes onfresh water toxicology and hydrologicalmodelling reflect the interests of the Insti-tute of Water Research, and are comple-mented by the work on sustainable environ-ments and their communities in the Depart-ment of Environmental Science (establishedin 1998). Two articles in this issue report onthe economic benefits of southern Africa’snatural resources to the rural poor.Within the Department of Biochemistry,Microbiology and Biotechnology, the bio-technologists have successfully filed patentsand developed viable industrial processes.Representing the theoretical side, three pa-pers in this issue are from the laboratory ofGreg Blatch. One is on heat shock proteinsfrom the coelacanth and the second is on themonitoring of protein–protein interactions.The third, on molecular chaperones, repre-sents basic work that won Blatch the presti-gious Wellcome Trust International SeniorResearch Fellowship — the first time thisaward has gone to a university without amedical school. A fourth paper, on mycorr-hizal interactions and dynamics by Hawleyand Dames, unites the work of microbiolo-gists and botanists.Research on the human condition is repre-sented by contributions of special relevanceto South Africa from the Faculty of Phar-macy and the Department of Human Kinet-ics and Ergonomics. Dowse and Ehlersreport on alternative methods of conveyingmedicine instructions to the poorly literateor illiterate by means of pictograms, andScott and Christie use ergonomic methodsto investigate the energy expenditure ofmanual labourers.This centenary suite of papers reflectswide-ranging scientific research at Rhodes,much of it concerning the people, flora,fauna and environment of southern Africa.Nevertheless, many researchers take part ina growing number of international collabo-rations, and research is increasingly multi-disciplinary. This results partly from thegrowth of widely applicable techniques andtechnologies, and partly from the increasingscope and complexity of research questions.The development of improved methods ofgene targeting, amplification and subse-quent DNA sequencing, for instance, has ledto the merging of work from seeminglydiverse disciplines, such as biochemistry,botany, zoology, physiology, anatomy andinformation technology. DNA sequencingat Rhodes produces data for researchers inseveral departments, most notably NigelBarker’s molecular ecology and systematicsgroup in the Department of Botany, whichcollaborates in research projects on thegenetic diversity of marine organisms (suchas mussels and crustaceans), insects andplants. The results are of interest to ecolo-gists and are also used in conservation andits strategic management.Another example reflects concern for theenvironment. Over the last three years, forinstance, researchers at the university, at theSouth African Institute for Aquatic Bio-diversity (formerly the J.L.B. Smith Instituteof Ichthyology) and government depart-ments have created the elaborate AfricanCoelacanth Ecosystem Programme to inves-tigate the biology and oceanography of thewestern Indian Ocean.While cutting edge research at South Afri-can universities is delicately poised, Rhodescontinues to commit itself to fostering excel-lent research. This special edition of theSouth African Journal of Science represents asnapshot of our science in progress.D.R. Woods(Vice-chancellor)518 South African Journal of Science 100, November/December 2005 Rhodes CentenaryAdditional information on each department can befound on the university web site, http://www.ru.ac.za/academic/degrees/department_list

Science after a century at Rhodes University

South East Academic Libraries System (SEALS)

http://vital.seals.ac.za:8080/vital/access/services/Download/vital:7123/SOURCEPDF

Science after a century at Rhodes University

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Rhodes Repository (SEALS)

South East Academic Libraries System (SEALS)