Featured Member of the Month

Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI)

Since its establishment in 1998, FABI has grown substantially to become one of South Africa's leading research institutions broadly focussed on plant (including forestry) biotechnology and related disciplines.  By 2009, the Institute included approximately 180 active participants encompassing 18 academic members of staff, approximately 120 M.Sc., Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows and a community of technical and administrative staff.  Core focus areas of research include Agricultural and Forest Biotechnology, Forest Entomology and Forest Pathology, Plant Genomics, Molecular Plant Pathogen and Plant Insect Interactions, Molecular Plant Physiology, Forest Molecular Genetics, Agricultural Plant Pathology and Entomology, Applied Mycology and Fungal Diversity, Phytobacteriology and Seed Pathology.  Other than the Director, Prof. Mike Wingfield (http://www.fabinet.up.ac.za/people/mjwingfield/), seventeen academic staff lead FABI, all appointed to one of five academic departments including Microbiology and Plant Pathology, Genetics, Biochemistry, Entomology and Zoology and Plant Production at the University of Pretoria.  Of these academic leaders of FABI, other than the Director, seven (Prof. Bernard Slippers, Prof. Jolanda Roux, Dr. Jeff Garnas, Dr. Martin Coetzee, Dr. Brett Hurley and Dr. Karl Kunert) hold specific FABI appointments and the remainder conduct their research in FABI but their appointments are directly with Departments.  FABI reports to an advisory committee comprised of the heads of the five departments involved in the activities of the Institute and chaired by the Dean of the Faculty.

The primary role of FABI is to promote outstanding research and post graduate education.  The multidisciplinary nature of the Institute allows a substantial level collaboration across disciplines and actively exposes students to a wide range of disciplines and cutting edge techniques.  The cross-disciplinary focus has led broad collaborations between academics and students that would otherwise not occurred.  This has provided substantial synergy lifting the "research bar" and substantially leveraging research opportunities and funding nationally and internationally.  Students of FABI represent a wide diversity of cultural background coming from many countries around the world and with approximately 27 mother tongue languages spoken. This substantial cultural diversity represents a major stimulus to research excellence.

Subsequent to its establishment, FABI very rapidly filled the space allocated to its activities in the new FABI building completed in 1998 and the sixth floor of the Agriculture building.  This justified the construction of a new building alongside FABI main building completed in 2004 and known as "FABI Square" and including major new greenhouse extensions.   In addition FABI has continuously invested in facilities for plant propagation and insect rearing on the university research farm.  In 2008, FABI celebrated it’s tenth anniversary and by that time 106 M.Sc. and 62 Ph.D. students had completed their degrees in the Institute.  Research outputs included three books, more than 450 publications in ISI rated journals and more than 700 presentations at national and international congresses.  By the end of 2009, of the 18 academic leaders of FABI research programmes 15 held ratings (a South African evaluation system for academics) managed by the National Research Foundation.
FABI academic leaders and students have been the recipients of numerous prestigious national and international awards for research accomplishments and excellence.  Numerous of the eleven key research groups have substantial international recognition.  For example the Tree Protection Co-operative Programme (TPCP), 21 years in existence in 2010 is the largest single programme dealing with tree health research in the world.  This programme clearly provided substantial motivation for the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation (NRF) to award one of South Africa's first six Centres of Excellence to FABI in 2004.  This Centre, known as the Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology (CTHB) rapidly provided substantial growth to FABI research programmes.  At the end of 2009, external (third stream) funding to FABI research programmes exceeded 25 million Rands (approximately 3 million US$) and coming from a wide variety of sources nationally and internationally. This base of support has enabled research programmes in FABI to be at the forefront of new scientific developments, for example leading major projects in the new and rapidly growing era of genomics as illustrated by teams in the Institute producing the first sequence of a bacterial plant pathogen and the first eukaryotic genome sequence in Africa.  Thus, by the end of its 12th year of existence, the Institute clearly had a firm foundation with a solid trajectory in terms of sustainable education and research outputs into the future.

Why membership in IUFRO is important to FABI

Forestry is important in South Africa, as it includes intensively managed plantations of non-native species (species of Pinus, Eucalyptus and Acacia) and importantly, the conservation of natural woody ecosystems that for example, provide the habitats for one of the world's greatest diversities of mammals and birds.  Research is important to the sustainability of forestry in South Africa and the responsibility for this activity resides in government institutions, commercial companies and in universities.  In this regard, IUFRO plays an important role, linking researchers an research activities nationally, with those in many other parts of the world. The Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, FABI (http://www.fabinet.up.ac.za/) of the University of Pretoria (http://web.up.ac.za/) in South Africa is significantly involved in forestry research and benefits from substantial active involvement in IUFRO.

Links:

• FABI website: http://www.fabinet.up.ac.za/
• Pictures: FABI Main Building – FABI Square

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