Eugene Kabwe

Position:PhD Student, Department Molecular and Cell Biology, UCT

Eugene is a PhD student at the University of Cape Town and is supervised by Prof. Dr. Nicola Illing, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Robert Ingle and Prof. Dr. Zoran Nikoloski. He holds a Masters degree in Bioinformatics with a specific background in genomics and transcriptomics of plant pathogenic fungi. His current project is focused on the evolutionary development of desiccation tolerance in resurrection plants with a particular interest in Xerophyta species. Eugene will perform comparative genomics and epigenetics analyses of Xerophyta species. As part of his secondment, Eugene will spend 6 months at CPSBB to work with Dr. Rafe Lyall on the assembly and annotation of Xerophyta genomes. Eugene will then spend 6 months with Prof. Dr. Zoran Nikoloski at the University of Potsdam to gain the skills required to study the role of epigenetics in desiccation tolerance in Xerophyta species.