A PhD candidate at the SA Medical Research Council/CPUT Cardiometabolic Health Research Unit recently attended the 24th International Congress of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine.
Dipuo Motshwari said she was awarded a travel bursary by the African Federation of Clinical Chemistry (AFCC) to attend the congress, which was held in Seoul, South Korea.
She said she learnt about the call for the application of the travel grant through the AFCC president, Prof Rajiv Erasmus, and decided to apply.
Motshwari said she was grateful for the opportunity to have attended the prestigious congress.
“I had the opportunity to learn, unlearn and re-learn from research peers and well-established researchers in the field and this wouldn’t have been possible via virtual means.”
She said the congress was initially scheduled to take place in May 2020 but due to the Covid-19 pandemic was moved to 2021 and then to this year.
“The IFCC young scientists forum was the highlight of the whole congress for me. It included a lot of interactive, informative and encouraging discussions among young researchers and gave us an opportunity to form a network amongst ourselves. The main congress also gave us access to leading laboratory medicine experts from all over the world, who shared their invaluable knowledge.”
Her research field of interest is molecular biology and non-communicable diseases. Motshwari joined the research unit in 2019 when she started her PhD in Biomedical Sciences under the supervision of Prof Tandi Matsha.
“My initial PhD project was based on ‘Investigating the level of DNA Methylation in hypertensive and normotensive mixed ancestry subjects of Bellville South, Western Cape’. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I could not carry out my laboratory analyses for the project and as a result in May 2020 I started a new project titled: Small non-coding RNA profiles in chronic kidney disease in the general population and high-risk subgroups (with hypertension and/or diabetes mellitus) in a South African community-based cohort, under the supervision of Professor Tandi E Matsha and Dr Cindy George (a senior scientist at the South African Medical Research Council.”
She has since published three first-author manuscripts in peer reviewed journals, which form part of her thesis.
Motshwari has also contributed to the writing of a book chapter titled “Glycated albumin, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease” where she wrote on the limitations of HbA1c as a marker for glycaemic control monitoring in diabetes individuals with severe stages of chronic kidney disease and alternative markers that can be used instead.
She recently submitted her PhD thesis for examination.
Motshwari also works part-time as a retention officer for the Faculty of Health and Wellness Sciences.
She grew up in a family of six and was born and raised in Morebeng (formerly known as Soekmekaar) a small rural town in Limpopo.
“I matriculated in the year 2011 and went to study towards a BSc in Medical Sciences at the University of Limpopo from 2012 to 2015, and during the course of my studies I was funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). My passion for research developed in 2015 when I was doing my Honours year, specialising in chemical pathology at the University of Limpopo.”
She thanked her supervisor, the AFCC president and her colleagues from the Cardiometabolic Health Research Unit for their support.
Written by Ilse Fredericks
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