The Director of the Forest Molecular Genetics (FMG) Programme, Prof. Zander Myburg, has been awarded the prestigious TW Kambule – NSTF Award for research and outputs over the last 5-10 years by an individual. The award acknowledges his outstanding overall contribution to forest molecular genetics research, but in particular highlights the recent research from his group which has uncovered the genomic control of wood formation in fast-growing Eucalyptus trees.

Prof. Myburg is the lead author of a recent paper in Nature which described the unravelling of the Eucalyptus genome. This major paper was followed by a number of related papers on the topic in a special issue in New Phytologist.

We congratulate Zander and celebrate with him for this significant professional recognition. With this award, Zander becomes the fourth FABIan to be recognised through a national NSTF award.

Zander is a Professor in Forest Genomics and Biotechnology, Department of Genetics and Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) and Genomics Research Institute at the University of Pretoria.