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Professor Altus Viljoen gave his inaugural lecture |
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Altus Viljoen has been inaugurated as Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, University of Stellenbosch, on 13 March 2008. With the catchy title “Till death do us part”, he captured everyone’s attention with a review on the role that plant pathology is playing in our everyday life. His lecture started with historic events that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and he showed how many of these diseases are still causing severe losses to crops and result in food insecurity to inhabitants of developing nations, despite existing control measures. Prof. Viljoen then explained how biotechnology can be used as a strong tool to investigate the relationship between plants and microbes, whether beneficial or detrimental, in the process of developing new-era control measures that are sustainable and environmentally safe. The inauguration was ended with a cheese and wine get together with family, friends and scientists in the field of plant pathology. From left to right: Prof. L. van Huyssteen (Executive Director Operations & Finance, SU), Prof. Altus Viljoen, Prof. Karen Theron (Acting Dean, Faculty of AgriSciences, SU) Prof. Theresa Coutinho (University of Pretoria), Prof. Altus Viljoen, Dr. Cheryl Lennox (Department of Plant Pathology, SU)
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