“Bettering yourself 0,1% a day is better than nothing” - Akhil Maharaj. Some Monday motivation from Akhil who is a Masters candidate in #bioinformatics at Stellenbosch University

By understanding how viruses mutate and evolve, we gain valuable insights into how to prevent and treat them. Excited to see what discoveries come out of Derek Tshiabuila’s journey to characterise viral recombination in some of SA’s prevalent viruses, including #HIV, #HBV & #HCV.

VEME is running for 27 years, it has 4 modules of hands on computer programming! The Phylogenetic Inference, module 1, introduce concepts of viral evolution & computational analysis, #VEME2023 module is lead by Dr. Eduan Wilkinson (SA) and Dr. Marta Giovanetti (Brazil/IT)

A remarkable night at Stellenbosch University's Research & Innovation Awards! 🎉 Director and an awesome leader, Prof. Tulio de Oliveira received the Rector & Vice-Chancellor's Research for Impact Award, and CERI took home the DVC Interdisciplinary Award for exceptional research! 🙌🏆🌐🔬

We're thankful for the recognition, as it fuels our mission. We're a team dedicated to challenging the status quo on epidemic response in Africa! 💪

The African genomics community strikes again! Real-time characterisation of new clade of Chikungunya in Senegal from the ongoing 2023 outbreak in Kédougou & Tambacounda. It suggest a new emergence from Sylvatic cycle (i.e. forest primates) - Pre-print ceri.org.za/publication/?t… 1/x

End of an amazing week of training delegates on how to adapt protocols to sequence pathogens. Lots of exciting discussions and yummy cupcakes 🧁 #CERI #CLIMADE #KRISP #ROCKEFELLER #tuliodna

Exciting presentations at #EEID2024! Master's student Yajna showcasing the transmission dynamics of the #Chikungunya virus in Africa, while PhD student Graeme Dor 🇿🇦 maps the origins and spread of #Omicron lineages in South Africa. #CLIMADE #CLIMADEAfrica

This is the first, 1st author paper of a young, women scientist of colour in SA! So impressive with her hard work, results and summary of what we know and what we do not know of Chikungunya in Africa! A must read and worth re-tweet to support young scientists in Africa.

So proud of our "AI in Science" MSc students graduating today from AIMS South Africa. During some intense months, we were able to explore solving complex questions in Epidemiology using ML and AI methods thanks to these bright young minds! Excited for what will come from this.

I'm truly grateful for the opportunity to complete my master's degree at CERI. A special thanks to my supervisors Houriiyah Tegally, PhD 🇲🇺 Monika Moir, PhD Tulio de Oliveira and to the entire Centre for Epidemic Response & Innovation (CERI) and krisp team for their support throughout this journey.

🚨 New paper out in Nature Communications! 🚨 Our study shows that multiple Omicron variants emerged independently across northeastern South Africa, with Gauteng as a key hub of early spread. 🔗 Read the open-access article: nature.com/articles/s4146… #SARSCoV2 #COVID19 #Omicron