Loretta on her way to obtaining her PhD
Loretta’s only goal as an aspiring cellular biologist is to do the same.
Yet another bright star has emerged from Emalahleni. Loretta Magagula (29) is pursuing a PhD in Medical Biochemistry at the University of Cape Town within the Biomedical Translational Research Initiative (BTRI).
Loretta received a financial leg-up to pursue her doctorate by ZEISS South Africa.
This year the multinational optical and optoelectronic technology company has granted bursaries to two brilliant young South African students being Loretta and Sthembile Mbotwe to assist them in completing their doctoral studies.
Sthembile is investigating the effect of aspirin and lipid binding protein in hypercoagulability induced by lipopolysaccharide for her PhD at the University of Pretoria.
Loretta’s project focuses on identifying and visualising specific breast and colorectal cancer-causing mutations within the South African population in a field that is almost entirely populated by Eurocentric data.
“I have used ZEISS equipment throughout my post-graduate studies at the University of Pretoria and UCT,” said Loretta.
She mentioned that French-American painter, sculptor, chess player and writer, Marcel Duchamp, once described art making as “making the invisible visible”.
Loretta’s only goal as an aspiring cellular biologist is to do the same.
This has been realised by using powerful microscopes created by ZEISS to visualise discrete and stochastic transcriptional events at nanometre range.
“I look forward to uncovering more of the invisible as I progress through my career,” added Loretta.
ZEISS Strategic Project Manager, Vani Naidoo said the two beneficiaries were selected for their outstanding work in physiology and biomedical sciences.
“Loretta and Sthembile both belong to research teams doing ground-breaking work in their respective fields. They are rising science stars and we are delighted to be sponsoring their studies. After all, we have a vested interest in encouraging the next generation of scientists,” said Vani.
Vani wished the two beneficiaries well in their endeavours.
“We are proud to be associated with these two brilliant young minds. We expect them to make great contributions to humanity and the field of science in the years to come,” Vani concluded.
