RESEARCH AT WITS

Over the last five years, our research output has increased by 10% with 96% of research published in international, high impact academic journals. Wits has a proud history of research excellence dating back to its origins as a School of Mining in 1922. Over the years, research activities have evolved to include the fields of humanities, social sciences and health sciences. More recently, we have encouraged a blended, interdisciplinary approach to research at Wits. This puts us in the right place to grapple with the complexities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, while producing world-class research that transforms and impacts society in multiple beneficial ways.

Research highlights

Research productivity exceeded the 2 000 units barrier for the first time against a target of 1 952 units, completing 10 years of year-on-year growth

30 South African Research

Initiative Chairs, including 2 new Chairs

Below are some examples of the type of high quality, relevant research conducted at Wits in fields like Covid-19, HIV, genetics, quantum computing, energy, migration, diversity and

inequality: - A milestone in the prevention of

HIV among women in sub Saharan

Africa, the newly discovered (CAB

LA) injection to prevent HIV is more effective than the current

HIV pill. - The Wits Advanced Drug Delivery

Platform (WADDP) research unit discovered that the repurposing of drugs is a cost-efficient approach that eliminates the lengthy time frames of conventional drug development, thus giving patients treatment sooner. - The Optical Society of America named Wits’ research involving fractal light from lasers as the most influential in optics and photonics. - Climate scientists are developing the first Earth System Model based in Africa which will contribute to the fight against the climate emergency. - In a major African Genome study,

Wits geneticists have discovered more than three million new genetic and susceptibility variants which informs African population history, environmental adaptation and susceptibility to disease. - PeCo Power – a home-grown electrical off-grid solution that will radically change lives and impact local communities. - A low-cost, long-range, free-space optics that can connect informal settlement communities to highspeed internet. - Wits Professors developed technology using molecular diagnostics that ensures the efficacy of the equipments that tests for tuberculosis which improves diagnosis and treatment of TB around the world. 215 Total number of SARChI Research Chairs

and Postdoctoral Research Fellows

National Research Foundation (2020)

422

Total number of NRF*- Rated Researchers

*National Research Foundation (2020)

26

Researchers

(2020)

3 793

Research Publications

(by 1 December 2021)

20 Areas of Research Excellence (2021)

6DSI-NRF Centres of

Excellence are hosted, or co-hosted at Wits

LATEST RESEARCH NEWS FROM WITS

Leti, (Homo Naledi child was discovered in the Cradle

(November, 2021) An international team of researchers, led by Professor Lee Berger revealed the first partial skull of a Homo Naledi child that was found in an extremely remote passage of the Rising Star Cave in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site near Johannesburg, South Africa. Describing the skull and its context in two separate papers in the Open Access journal, PaleoAnthropology, the team of 21 researchers from Wits University and thirteen other universities announced the discovery of parts of the skull and teeth of the child that died almost 250 000 years ago when it was approximately four to six years old.

Geophysicists develop innovative seismic technologies

The innovation, a project led by Professor Musa Manzi, Director of the Wits Seismic Research Centre in the School of Geosciences, is a response to the Advanced Orebody Knowledge call titled, Developing technologies that will be used to obtain information ahead of the mine face such as Tunnel Seismic Prediction (TSP). The project aims to combine active and passive seismic methods, using a combination of innovative instruments, for exploration in noisy, near-mine environments from 300 – 3 500 metre depths.

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH

If you are a recent PhD graduate, we encourage you to complete your postdoctoral fellowship at Wits. This will greatly assist your professional development and prepare you for a career in academia. Consider it a two-year academic ‘apprenticeship’ or internship.

MEET THREE OF OUR BRIGHT POSTGRAD FELLOWS

Dr Bernice Monchusi (PhD)

Bernice Monchusi is a Postdoctoral Fellow under the mentorship of Professor Mandeep Kaur at the School of Molecular and Cell Biology

Dr Iniyan Natarajan (PhD)

Iniyan Natarajan is a Postdoctoral Fellow under the mentorshop of Professor Roger Deane in the School of Physics

Dr Bernice Monchusi received the Postgraduate Student Biotech Fundi award from the InnovationHub, for Gauteng region in 2018. She is currently part of a team involved in several projects relating to cancer drug resistance. Her main project focuses on exploring the role of microRNAs in cholesterol-mediated drug resistance, in breast cancer.

THE RESEARCH IMPACT

Several projects are currently being run in Professor Kaur’s laboratory to develop new therapeutic approaches to combat drug resistance in cancer. The lab also does anticancer screening on cell lines for several collaborators within South Africa and India. Dr Iniyan Natarajan, a postdoctoral researcher currently working with Dr Roger Deane, a professor of radio astronomy at Wits, was part of the team that simulated the black hole polarisation images of the M87 galaxy, as well as the team that helped generate the final image that was released.

THE RESEARCH IMPACT

Scientists aim to create a 3D map of the black hole’s surroundings, and hope to better understand black hole coronas and explore how the corona of a black hole is capable of producing bright X-ray flares.

Wits offers a large number of Postdoctoral Fellowships annually and our goal is to grow the number of Postdoctoral Fellows to more than 200.

Geraud Nangue Tasse (PhD)

Computer science student Geraud Tasse was awarded the IBM PhD Fellowship Award in 2021 for his work on composition in reinforcement learning (RL). He is one of 16 students worldwide to receive the award.

Tasse completed his composition work in boolean task algebra. Boolean algebra has been fundamental in the development of digital electronics and is present in all modern programming languages.

THE RESEARCH IMPACT

The outcome of the process is building a smart machine that constitutes a software system capable of accomplishing tasks that commonly require human intelligence. Such machines can be robots or computer systems.

LATEST RESEARCH NEWS FROM WITS

Setting records for lightmatter interaction

A team of Wits physicists created a tiny superconducting circuit that mimics the quantum mechanical process in which an atom absorbs or emits light. The advantage of an artificial device like this one is that it can mimic other strongly interacting systems. For example, the device can be used to simulate the quantum phenomena that occur inside a lump of metal – which was previously impossible.

Ancient human relative, Australopithecus sediba –

Walked like a human, but climbed like an ape, 23 November 2021 – Wits. An international team of scientists from New York University, Wits and fifteen other institutions announced in the Open Access journal, e-Life, the discovery of two-million-year-old fossil vertebrae from an extinct species of ancient human relative. The study concludes that Sediba is a transitional form of ancient human relative and its spine is clearly intermediate in shape between those of modern humans (and Neandertals) and great apes.

Wits Scientists have discovered:

- A new species of dinosaur; - the dung beetle wind compass; - an asteroid that contributed to mass extinction and climate change, and - an ancient drop of water that rewrites the Earth’s history.