My current responsibilities include teaching and research. http://natural-sciences.nwu.ac.za/microbiology/staff

Teaching and researchResponsibilities:Develop and implement courses on Industrial Microbiology and Fermentation Technology for 3rd year and honour’s students, respectively.Achievements:Secured R 1 500 000 in National Research Foundation funding over 3 years for a study of the microbiome of South African dung beetles.

Genetic engineering of cellulolytic ability into the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This project was funded by Mascoma Corporation (USA). Responsibilities:Construction of a cellulosome in S. cerevisiae. Mascoma filed a patent for this work in 2012. (http://www.google.com/patents/US20120142046)

• Optimization of fermentation capacity to minimize down-time• Optimization of secondary metabolite production• Chemical extraction of secondary metabolites form microbial cultures• Analysing product quality with extensive trouble shooting• Establish and maintaining company culture collection and associated culture database• Product inventory control and maintenance

During and after completing my PhD I was a member of a team at Stellenbosch University working on the development of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain able to break down lignocellulose. I was responsible for the engineering hemicellulolytic degrading ability into the yeast. In 2001 I reported, the successful construction of a yeast capable of breaking down xylan to its monomeric sugars, xylose, in Applied and Environmental Microbiology (http://aem.asm.org/content/67/12/5512.long).