Congresses

ABOUT THE CONGRESSES

SASBMB hosts a biennial national congress featuring lectures, seminars and poster presentations from students, junior researchers and established scientists.

28th SASBMB congress

The 28th SASBMB Congress will be held in 2024 (7-10 July 2024) in Polokwane hosted by the University of Venda under the stewardship of Prof Addmore Shonhai. It will take place at the Protea Hotel Resort, Polokwane, South Africa. For more information, please visit here.

27^th SASBMB congress

Initially the 27^th SASBMB congress was planned to be held at the Groenkloof campus (Faculty of Education) of the University of Pretoria on the 5^th to 8^th July 2020. However, the worldwide pandemic named COVID-19 derailed all plans. The SASBMB council in May 2021 made the decision to have a fully virtual congress due to uncertainty over lockdown extensions and restrictions placed on gatherings and institutions of tertiary education, and the associated financial risk of cancelling an in-person conference. Thus the 27^th SASBMB congress for the first time in the history of SASBMB, was held virtually commencing the Sunday evening of the 23^rd January 2022. It was organized and successfully executed by the local organizing committee chaired by Prof Wolf-Dieter Schubert. In total 357 delegates attended the congress with 15 invited speakers, 72 selected speakers, and 80 poster presentations.

The first scientific presentation of the congress was by Nobel Prize laureate Prof Frances Arnold, with a presentation entitled “Innovation by evolution: Bringing new chemistry to life”. In total 8 plenary presentations (2 international and 6 national) were given, including presentations by the SASBMB Silver and Gold medallists, Dr Fidele Tuqizimana and Prof Don Cowan.

Themes of the conferences included Metabolism and Enzymology, Understanding and Treating Cancer, Technical Biochemistry, Combatting Viral Diseases, Phytomedicine and Drug Development, Parasitic Disease, Molecular Cell Biology, Molecular Omics and Bioinfomatics, and Metabolism, Enzymology, and Structure.

Prof Paul Kappo presented Dr Fidele Tuqizimana with the Silver Medal Award for 2022

26th SASBMB congress

Between the 8^th and 11^th July 2018, North-West University hosted the 26^th biennial SASBMB conference held in conjunction with FASBMB. It was hosted on the Potchefstroom campus of NWU and was attended by 401 delegates. In total 17 South African higher education institutions were represented and delegates from 6 countries attended.

The broad scope of the themes and topics of the programme was aimed at covering the main topics of research done in South Africa/Africa. The programme was divided into four main themes:

Human disease
Biological systems
Structural, Cellular, & Molecular biology
Therapeutics and Biotechnology

In total 13 plenary talks were given, including a presentation by the Gold Medal winner, Prof Trevor Sewell. Delegates were spoiled with choice as 99 research talks were given across 3 parallel sessions over the three days. Most encouraging was the number of postgraduate students presenting their research indicative of an active Biochemistry and Molecular Biology community in South Africa.

The conference provided an enjoyable opportunity for scientific exchange between academics, students, scientists, and industry. The general collegial atmosphere and opportunities of exchange during the conference program where visible during lively Q&As after presentations, open air lunches, lively poster and tea/coffee sessions and social functions.

List of SASBMB Congresses

	Year	Location	Convenor/Chairman
1^st South African Biochemical Society Congress	1975	Hermanus	W Gevers
2^nd South African Biochemical Society Congress	1976	Rustenburg	D.P. Botes
3^rd South African Biochemical Society Congress	1978	Johannesburg	K.L. Manchester
4^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1979	Rhodes University, Grahamstown	W. Gervers
5^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1980	Umhlanga Rocks	G.V. Quicke
6^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1981	Magaliesberg	D.J.J. Potgieter
7^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1983	Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch	K. van der Merwe
8^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1984	University of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth	W. Oelofsen
9^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1988	Wilderness	C. von Holt
10^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1990	University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg	M. Dutton
11^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1992	Pilanesberg Convention Centre, North Western Province	L. Visser
12^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1994	Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch	K.J. van der Merwe
13^th South African Biochemical Society Congress	1995	University of the Free State, Bloemfontein	D Litthauer
14^th South African Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Congress	1997	Grahamstown	C. Whiteley
15^th South African Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Congress	1998	PUCHE	P.J. Pretorius
16^th South African Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Congress	2000	Grahamstown	P. Rose
17^th South African Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Congress	2001	Rondebosch, Cape Town	I Parker
18^th South African Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Congress	2003	Groenkloof campus, University of Pretoria	A Louw
19^th South African Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Congress	2005	Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch	P Swart
20^th South African Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Congress	2006	University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg	T Coetzer
21^st South African Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Congress	2008	Rhodes University, Grahamstown	R Dorrington

1 First time in the Society’s history a guest from another African country attended in the person of Prof
Dominic Makawiti, from the Dept. of Biochemistry at the Univ. of Nairobi, Kenya.
2 Prof Horst Kleinkauf, General Secretary of the IUBMB, delivered the opening address of the Congress on the
first day.
3 The change of the name of the Society to the SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY FOR BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR
BIOLOGY (SASBMB) was proposed by Council and was unanimously ratified by GM in 1994.
4 The 15 th SASBMB congress was the first combined meeting with the 2nd FASBMB Congress.
5 The 16 th SASBMB congress was a combined meeting with Biotech SA, SASM, SASPP, and WISA.
6 The 17 th SASBMB congress was the first international meeting, co-sponsored by the IUBMB with the local
organising committee representing UCT, UWC, and SU.