Professor Kugen Permaul, a Professor in the DUT Department of Biotechnology and Food Technology in the Faculty of Applied Sciences, will hold his inaugural lecture on Friday, 22 May 2015, at the DUT Hotel School Conference Centre, Ritson Campus, at 18h00.

Professor Permaul’s inaugural lecture: Evolution of a Gene Jockey (“gene jockey” was a humorous term used to describe young scientists at the beginning of the Biotech era), will be the second inaugural lecture to be hosted by the University in 2015.

Evolution of a Gene Jockey will trace Prof Permaul’s research career thus far and highlight key discoveries and their relevance and importance to society. In addition, the impact of scientific research, in general, and especially in the fields of molecular biology will be described “as we exit the genomics era”.

Prof Permaul is a National Research Foundation (NRF) C-rated researcher. He obtained his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of KwaZulu Natal. His early research projects focused on bacterial molecular genetics, especially plasmid biology. He graduated with a PhD in 1999 and spent a year as a post-doctoral fellow before being employed as a lecturer at DUT in 2000. He has published in high-impact scientific journals and is involved in peer-review of research for several international journals as well as for international and local academic institutions and the NRF.

Prof Permaul’s current research projects focus on expression of xylanase, xylosidase, chitinase and other carbohydrate-degrading genes, the use of chitin as a bio resource and DNA watermarking.

Members of the media wishing to attend the event are urged to contact Noxolo Memela on (031) 373 2899 or noxolom@dut.ac.za by no later than Tuesday, 19 May 2015.

– Noxolo Memela

Pictured: Professor Kugen Permaul.