Dr Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu, passed away on September 24, 2021 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. He was born in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo on August 18, 1969, son of the late Mazandu-Kuza and Nketani-Bilandi. He is survived by his beloved wife Madam Marie-Paul (Malungidi), his four children (Jemima, Glodi, Keren and Emmanuel) and his siblings and friends.
Mrs. Samie is a first-year Masters student, specializing in Human Genetics, at the University of Cape Town. She obtained both her Bachelors and Honors degrees studying at the University of Cape Town. Mrs. Samie is the second eldest of two siblings and is married to Sage Davids. Some of her goals include publishing her first journal article, obtaining her Master’s degree and finally getting her driver’s license. Mrs.
Mr. Esoh is a SADaCC Research Fellow in Human Genetics.
Dr. Kambe Banda is a medical doctor by profession. Currently a PhD student at the University of Cape Town in the division of Human Genetics.
Mrs. Hotchkiss works remotely from her home in Kloof (KZN, South Africa) as the lead curator for the SCDO. Her undergraduate background is in biochemistry and physiology. She has qualifications and work experience related to high school teaching, software development quality control, documentation creation and editing, and programming and research in the bioinformatics field.
Mr. Mupfururirwa joined the SADaCC group to assist the Data Management and Information group with implementing sustainable Data Management schemas. He is working on implementing mobile health in the SADaCC group. My role is to find gaps in research which technology can fill. He is also currently working on implementing a mobile health application that will assist patients with pain management as well as work on implementing pipelines.
Chandré Oosterwyk received her BSc in Medical Bioscience and microbiology at the University of the Western Cape in 2018. In 2018 she completed her Honours degree in Human Genetics. Her honours project involved investigating the role of the SFRP4 causing Pyle disease in a South African patient, which was under the supervision of Professor Ambroise Wonkam. Chandré is currently registered as a Masters student at the University of Cape Town.
Dr. Morrice is managing the development of data analysis pipelines and training material for big data epidemiology. Pipelines to include GWAS studies, whole genome sequence variant calling, cleaning and summarizing epidemiology registry data, and more. The pipelines will be augmented by extensive online documentation and training materials.
Dr. Mnika obtained her Ph.D. in Human Genetics in 2020. She has already published three manuscripts as a first author and four manuscripts as a co-author in high-impact journals. Her Ph.D. project is entitled;"Pharmacogenomics of Sickle Cell Disease: Pain and Drug metabolism associated Gene Variants” and hydroxyurea induced post-transcriptional expression of miRNAs in an African cohort.
Mr Nguweneza is PhD student in the Division of Human Genetics, University of Cape Town. His project is looking at genetic and non-genetic factors that are associated with blood pressure variation among sickle cell patients.