In April this year, Inqaba Biotec organized a competition to promote the arrival of the PacBio Sequel IIe system. The winner of the competition could sequence the genomes of five different species (three different individuals of the each selected species) important to the biodiversity in sub-Saharan Africa using this new platform.

Entrants were asked to submit a video of not more than 90 seconds explaining the proposed project. This explanation had to be kept ‘simple’ so that members of the public could also understand why it would be great to sequence the genome of that particular species. Videos are classified into different categories listed as Vertebrates, Invertebrates and Microbes, Metagenomics, Plants, East Africa Selection and West Africa Selection. The video that got the most ‘likes’ from the public on their YouTube channel won the prizes. Dr Neriman Yilmaz, who is a senior postdoctoral Fellow at FABI, entered the competition with a project titled “Sequencing the genome of the fungus Pseudopithomyces chartarum responsible for facial eczema in cattle”. Her project was selected as one of the category winners (courtesy) wining the prize to have the genome sequenced of Pseudopithomyces chartarum on the PacBio Sequel IIe system. This project will help us to understand the fungus in depth and stay tuned for the exciting results.

You can also watch Neriman’s video by clicking here.