The Faculty of Health Sciences recently honoured its best and brightest with the annual Young Investigator’s Best Publication Award. This year introduced a new category for postgraduates and awards were granted to researchers in the clinical, basic laboratory and public health and rehabilitation sciences. Competition was fierce in the basic sciences early career category where adjudicators had a difficult time choosing a winner resulting in the award going to three applicants.

The prize is a cash award to the value of R10 000 for the early career prize and R5 000 for the postgraduate prize, which must be used for research or other academic purposes.

Early Career Award group photo, Left to right: Lindi Masson, Liesl Zuhlke, A/Prof Jennifer Moodley (Deputy Dean of Research), Vinayak Singh, Jade Peres, Nicola Foster

In the early career category eleven applications were received and five awards were made as follows:

Basic Sciences

In this category there were three winners:

Jade Peres for her article “The T-box transcription factor, TBX3, is a key substrate of AKT3 in melanomagenesis” which appeared in Oncotarget (30; 6(3):1821-33)

Vinayak Singh for his article “The Complex Mechanism of Antimycobacterial Action of 5-Fluorouracil” which appeared in Chemistry & Biology (22; 22(1):63-75)

Lindi Masson for her article “Genital Inflammation and the Risk of HIV Acquisition in Women” in Clinical Infectious Diseases (15; 61 (2):260-9).

Clinical Laboratory Sciences

Liesl Zuhlke for her article “Characteristics, complications, and gaps in evidence-based interventions in rheumatic heart disease: the Global Rheumatic Heart Disease Registry (the REMEDY study)” which appeared in the European Heart Journal (7; 36(18):1115-22a). 

Public Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

Nicola Foster for her article “The economic burden of TB diagnosis and treatment in South Africa” which appeared in Social Science & Medicine (Apr; 130:42-50).

In the postgraduate category twelve applications were received and three awards were made as follows:

Basic Sciences

Nicole Ellman for her article “Ethnic differences in the association between lipid metabolism genes and lipid levels in black and white South African women” which appeared in Atherosclerosis (240(2):311-7).

Clinical Laboratory Sciences

Greg Calligaro for his article “Burden of tuberculosis in intensive care units in Cape Town, South Africa, and assessment of the accuracy and effect on patient outcomes of the Xpert MTB/RIF test on tracheal aspirate samples for diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis: a prospective burden of disease study with a nested randomised controlled trial” which appeared in Lancet Respiratory Medicine (3(8):621-30).

Public Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

David Hume for his article “Electrophysiological indices of visual food cue-reactivity. Differences in obese, overweight and normal weight women” which appeared in Appetite (85:126-37).

 

Postgraduate group photo, left to right: David Hume, A/Prof Jennifer Moodley (Deputy Dean of Research), Nicole Ellman and Michele Tomasicchio (He accepted the award on behalf of Greg Calligaro)