faculty of health & wellness sciences dean’s report

DR DHIRO GIHWALA

In this, our first year of operation as an all-inclusive Faculty of Health & Wellness Sciences, the staff and students continued to build on the tradition of conducting quality research as they had done in the past. The newly configured faculty also provided the platform for talented young staff members to engage with established researchers. This bodes well for growth in unique interdisciplinary research in the future. The related research activities in the faculty form a rich tapestry of various facets of health and health-education investigations within the context of a university of technology.

Our research degree programmes had some 30 master’s and five doctoral research degree students enrolled in the various fields of health. Some have concluded their studies, while others are near completion. Postgraduate students were offered the opportunity to do oral presentations at national and regional conferences and symposia and these were of customary high quality.

A large number of staff were engaged with their own postgraduate studies and the achievements of our staff continue to be recognised by the conferment of academic qualifications. The following staff members obtained doctorates: Nicole Brooks from the University of the Western Cape, Marina Clarke from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and Peter Clarke-Farr from the University of the Free State. All three individuals continue to contribute to research in the faculty and are supervising a number of graduate students. One of our leading researchers in the specialised area of molecular biology, Dr Sehaam Khan, returned from a research institution in Singapore where she spent a year on a post-doctoral fellowship. She is supervising two master’s and two doctoral students.

The year saw the first steps in the establishment of an Oxidative Stress Research Centre which is envisaged to be the flagship laboratory-based research entity of the Faculties of Health & Wellness

Sciences and Applied Sciences. The Centre has a number of master’s and doctoral students. Collaborative interest has been shown by various international and national researchers. The Centre has done leading research work for the Malaysian Palm Oil Board from which it received funding. It also formed a partnership with a prestigious research Institute in Hungary through a grant from the NRF. Another major strength of the Centre is that it is well poised to do research on the anti-oxidative properties of local flora and in this regard, one of our researchers is a foremost authority on the medicinal properties of rooibos tea. Continuing research is being conducted in this area.

The prevalence of tuberculosis in the Western Cape region and the high incidence of diabetes led to significant research in these areas. A number of epidemiological studies associated with local communities were undertaken leading to a range of conference presentations and intervention strategies. Part of the work was in collaboration with the Pathology Department of the University of Stellenbosch where we had five master’s students engaged in research investigations. Studies are not, however, confined to field work investigations; laboratory-based pathological research was also carried out.

As a faculty continually striving for optimal student development, and conscious of the fact that students need to be exposed to relevant learning opportunities, important investigations were done in the area of the readability of science texts, language factors affecting student learning and appropriateness of curricula related to practice. The latter was of particular significance in the context of our undertaking to provide services to the African continent. In this regard Dr Penelope Engel-Hills has been a key investigator on assignment by the International Atomic Energy Agency to assist with radiography programmes throughout Africa. Other staff contributed to the research of the

Work-Integrated Research Unit (WILRU) of the university which focused on the knowledge transfer between higher education and workplace.

In all, the year was productive, despite the fact that much time was taken up with issues associated with amalgamation of academic departments. We managed to establish a nationally recognised Research Ethics Committee for Health Sciences and Applied Sciences. Our request for research funding was modest but on a relative scale we had significant outputs. However, none of this would be possible without the continuing support of the university, the NRF, industry, individuals and other stakeholders of the faculty. We are very appreciative of their support and their ongoing confidence in our abilities. I also want to thank those people who offer their ideas, feedback and encouragement to our researchers as they strive for greater knowledge contribution.