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AATF and the Commission of the African Union sign MoU |
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The African Union (AU) Commission and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will see them work together to raise agricultural productivity in Africa through technology access, development, delivery and uptake.
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AATF and the Commission of the African Union (AU) sign MoU |
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The African Agricultural Technology (AATF) and the Commission of the African Union (AU) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Monday, 23 January 2012
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| Jennifer Ann Thomson – Microbiologist |
 Jennifer Thomson has a BSc in zoology from the University of Cape Town, an MA in genetics from Cambridge University and a PhD in microbiology from Rhodes University in South Africa. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School and spent a sabbatical year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was a lecturer, senior lecturer and Associate Professor in the Department of Genetics at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa before starting and being the Director of the Laboratory for Molecular and Cell Biology for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. She then became Professor and Head of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Cape Town (UCT), a post she held for 12 years until the Department merged with the Department of Biochemistry. She is now a Professor of Microbiology in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UCT. Her main current research interests are in the development of maize resistant to the African endemic maize streak virus (MSV) and tolerant to drought. The MSV work has been shown in glasshouse trials to give excellent protection. Her group is now embarking on biosafety analyses – the first in South Africa – prior to field trials. These will be the first analyses and trials of a transgenic plant developed in Africa, for an African problem, using African plant genes. Other positions held in the past include the Deputy Dean of Science at UCT, chair and member of the South African Genetic Engineering Committee, co-founder and chair of SA Women in Science and Engineering, and Vice-President of the SA Academy of Science. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and of UCT. She is a member of the board of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications (ISAAA) and the European Action Group on Life Sciences (EAGLES). She chairs the National Biotechnology Advisory Committee which advises the Minister of Science and Technology. Honours received include the L’Oreal/UNESCO prize for Women in Science and an honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris. She is a regular writer and speaker internationally on the subject of genetically modified organisms, especially crops and foods derived from them. These include addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos for two successive years, and the United Nations as the guest of Secretary General Kofi Annan. Her two books, Genes for Africa and Seeds for the Future are geared towards the interested layperson. |
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