“Broadband” Bioinformatics Skills Transfer with the Knowledge Transfer Programme (KTP): Educational Model for Upliftment and Sustainable Development

A shortage of practical skills and relevant expertise is possibly the primary obstacle to social upliftment and sustainable development in Africa. The “omics” fields, especially genomics, are increasingly dependent on the effective interpretation of large and complex sets of data. Despite abundant natural resources and population sizes comparable with many first-world countries from which talent could be drawn, countries in Africa still lag far behind the rest of the world in terms of specialized skills development. Moreover, there are serious concerns about disparities between countries within the continent. The multidisciplinary nature of the bioinformatics field, coupled with rare and depleting expertise, is a critical problem for the advancement of bioinformatics in Africa. We propose a formalized matchmaking system, which is aimed at reversing this trend, by introducing the Knowledge Transfer Programme (KTP). Instead of individual researchers travelling to other labs to learn, researchers with desirable skills are invited to join African research groups for six weeks to six months. Visiting researchers or trainers will pass on their expertise to multiple people simultaneously in their local environments, thus increasing the efficiency of knowledge transference. In return, visiting researchers have the opportunity to develop professional contacts, gain industry work experience, work with novel datasets, and strengthen and support their ongoing research. The KTP develops a network with a centralized hub through which groups and individuals are put into contact with one another and exchanges are facilitated by connecting both parties with potential funding sources.This is part of the PLOS Computational Biology Education collection.     

Spectral, photophysical and photochemical properties of tetra- and octaglycosylated zinc phthalocyanines

Photophysical and photochemical properties of a series of tetra- and octaglycosylated zinc phthalocyanines (ZnPcs) substituted with glucose and galactose moieties have been reported. Spectral properties of these phthalocyanines are compared in DMSO. Absorption spectra of the non-peripherally tetra-substituted ZnPcs 2 showed a significant red shift in their Q-band maxima as compared to the peripherally substituted analog 1. All the complexes gave high triplet quantum yields ranging from 0.68 to 0.88, whereas triplet lifetimes were in the range of 100-430 μs in argon-saturated solutions. The octagalactosylated ZnPc 3b showed the highest triplet quantum yield and singlet oxygen quantum yield of 0.88 and 0.69, respectively. The fluorescence quantum yields and lifetimes of all the compounds under investigation were within the range of zinc phthalocyanine complexes.     

People of the Great Sandface

“The final year in the traditional life of the last free‐living !Gwikwe Bushmen of the central Kalahari Desert of Botswana, before they followed others to a government settlement, becomes a moving and sensitive celebration of their struggle for survival. Having learnt the techniques needed to make the film single‐handedly Paul Myburgh went to extraordinary lengths of physical endurance and deprivation to put on record the last group of bushmen living in the old nomadic way. An anthropologist, he lived for 22 months in the bush. To him it represents their final exodus, and is an informative portrayal of life in a band of people whose way of life represents a vanishing link with our past. Myburgh's photography is superb: sweeping shots setting the scene of the endless desert contrasted with the frenzy of the hunt and the gnarled, wizened face of the oldest woman, the wiggly walk of the youngest child. Myburgh's familiarity with the !Gwikwe allowed him to shoot intimate scenes in which the subjects seem totally unaware of the camera, allowing the viewer a unique experience of their exodus: for instance, the tribal puberty dance, an event which men are prohibited from watching. In the end it is sensible, but immeasurably sad, that the !Gwikwe, for their survival, must concede that the desert has defeated them. The film becomes an uncanny time capsule of man's earlier days and one is left with the feeling that through the ages we've lost something: a spirit of community, perhaps. This film is the final record of these ancient people—the hunters with the poison arrows, the people of the healing dance, the painters of Southern Africa's rock art treasures who speak with a strange clicking tongue—a vanishing phase of human culture. In the closing scene a bush‐man gazes in incomprehension at water splashing from a tap; ironically, beyond contemporary Western understanding too” [Cinema Under Siege, 1990:50].     

The effect of temperature and effluent recycle rate on hydrogen production by undefined bacterial granules

Biohydrogen production in an anaerobic fluidized granular bed bioreactor was strongly dependent on temperature and effluent recycle rates. At 45 °C as the effluent recycle rate was increased from 1.3 to 3.5 L/min, the total H? output for the bioreactor increased from 10.6 to 43.2 L/h. Volumetric H(2) productivity also increased from 2.1 to 8.7 L H?/L/h. At 70°C as the effluent recycle was increased from 1.3 to 3.5 L/min, the total H? output for the bioreactor increased from 13.8 to 73.8L/h. At 70 °C volumetric H(2) productivities increased from 2.8 to 14.8L H?/L/h as the effluent recycle rate was increased from 1.3 to 3.5 L/min. At 45 °C % H? was 45% and reached 67% at 70 °C. Maximum hydrogen yields at 45 °C were 1.24 and 2.2 mol H?/mol glucose at 70 °C.