SASBi-SAGS 2014 at Kwalata Ranch

The joint congress of the South African Society for Bioinformatics (SASBi) and the South African Genetics Society (SAGS) took place at Kwalata Ranch outside Pretoria, which is part of the Dinokeng Conservancy, from 23 to 26 September. The programme included a large selection of international keynote speakers, such as Chandra Verma (Singapore Bioinformatics Institute), Mikhail Gelfand (Moscow State University), Yves van de Peer (Ghent University), Rasmus Nielsen (UC-Berkeley), Jerry Tuskan (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA) and Pedro Crous (CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Centre, The Netherlands). Oral presentations and poster sessions were alternated with traditional performances and the best of South African food. Two FABIans were elected to the SAGS executive committee: Albé van der Merwe as vice president, and Sanushka Naidoo as secretary. The next SASBi-SAGS congress takes place in 2016, and promises to be just as informative, and as much fun, as the most recent one.