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1947
1947
Basil Isaac Hirschowitz: after moving to the USA, he invented the first flexible fibre-optic endoscope which revolutionised the diagnosis and treatment of digestive disorders. He was based then at the University of Michigan. His career included leadership in clinical trials that pioneered new pharmaceutical treatments in gastroenterology. Groll-Hirschowitz Syndrome, a rare genetic condition characterised by gastrointestinal abnormalities, deafness and neuropathy, is the first description of the syndrome. Arguably one of the leading inventions in medicine in the 20th century, Hirschowitz’s endoscope became the standard for visualising and treating virtually every cavity in the body, paving the way for, amongst others, cancer detection. The endoscope prototype now resides in the Smithsonian Institution.
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1948
1948
SA’s first black female doctor was a Witsie
When apartheid became law in 1948, a black woman from Limpopo had already achieved a series of firsts …
Mary Susan Makobatjatji Malahlela (pictured alongside) was born in Polokwane (then Pietersburg) on 2 May 1916. Her parents, Thadeus Chweu and Susan Mautswane Malahlela, fled the village after they refused to kill the twin boys born after Mary – the BaPedi tribe traditionally considered twins a curse.
The eldest daughter attended the Methodist Primary School in the former Roodepoort West Location, where her father was the principal. She completed the Native Primary Lower Teachers Course at the Kilnerton Institution in 1933 and then enrolled at the Lovedale Institution for the Junior Certificate Examination at UNISA. In 1936, she registered for the Medical Aid Course and her pre-medical course at Fort Hare University, which at the time was the only programme available to black people interested in practising medicine.
In 1941, Malahlela made history as the first beneficiary of the Native Trust Fund. This scholarship for academic achievement enabled her to enrol to study medicine at Wits. On 21 June 1947, she took the Hippocratic Oath at the graduation ceremony where she became the first black woman in SA to qualify as a medical doctor. She completed her internship at McCords Hospital in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, and remained there as a doctor until 1949.
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1951
1951
Thomas Hamilton Bothwell pioneered the use of radioactivity as a tool to unravel the mysteries of iron metabolism and was among the first in the world to describe radioiron kinetics in haemochromatosis and in normal iron metabolism while he was still a medical registrar.
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1964
1964
In 1964, together with Louis Leakey and John Napier, Emeritus Professor Phillip Tobias identified a new hominin species, Homo habilis. “Africa gave the world humanity; Africa gave the worls its first human culture and that is no small feat.”
There is no internal Wits link with this information. I found an external link - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Homo-habilis
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1969
1969
The South African Medical Research Council was established. Three members from Wits were on the first Council: Professors James Gear, Jan Dreyer (from Dental School) and Tom Bothwell. Professor AJ Brink, an alumnus, was the first President.
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2002
2002
Sydney Brenner is the first Wits medical graduate to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology in 2002. Former head of the British Medical Research Council and head of Molecular Biological research at Cambridge where he was closely associated with Francis Crick. A Fellow of the Royal Society. Twice a recipient of the Lasker prize. After retirement he moved to Berkeley, California, and has since moved to the Salk Institute in San Diego.
Origins of humankind were discovered by some of our world-renowned scientists including Professor Raymond Dart and Professor Phillip V Tobias.
Professor Ron Clarke discovered and described Little Foot, one of the world’s most complete skeletons - https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2017/2017-12/little-foot-takes-a-bow.html
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2018
2018
Wits Cardiovascular Pathophysiology Research Unit a first in the private sector
Wits physiologists and cardiologists have established the Cardiovascular Pathophysiology Research Unit at the Mayo Clinic in Gauteng.
The Cardiovascular Pathophysiology Research Unit (CPRU), launched on 12 October 2018, is the first of its kind to be geographically located within a private hospital setting. This is essential for access to patients and accurate data.
World’s first intentional HIV+ liver transplant
Wits doctors transplanted the liver from a mother living with HIV to her critically ill HIV negative child, who had end-stage liver disease.
Would you rather die of liver failure or live with HIV?
This was the ethical dilemma faced by doctors at Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre to save a child’s life.
In 2017, doctors from the Transplant Unit at the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre performed what is believed to be the world’s first intentional liver transplant from a mother living with HIV to her critically ill HIV negative child, who had end-stage liver disease.
Now, more than a year later, the mother and child have fully recovered, however, doctors are unsure the HIV-status of the child.
Legislation for a sugary beverage tax passed in 2018
https://ewn.co.za/2017/12/06/listen-sugary-drinks-tax-passed
PRICELESS has become a leader in SA on performing policy relevant research on where to get the best return on investment for health.
The sugary drinks tax – or health promotion levy – is expected to prevent a wide-range of obesity related non-communicable diseases. These include diabetes, cancer, stroke and heart disease. This is important because South Africa’s public health sector is severely overburdened. Public hospitals are seeing on average of 25 000 new hypertensive cases a month as well as 10 000 new diabetic patients each month. These are estimated to be only half of the real numbers because both are silent conditions.
The effect of the reduction in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases will be twofold: it will help the country to implement National Health Insurance (NHI) as an overwhelmed health system will be a barrier to NHI. And it will reduce the negative effect that chronic non-communicable diseases have on economic growth because of the impact on the workforce due to increased absenteeism and decreased productivity.
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2019
2019
First HPV vaccine impact project in Africa
The Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute will evaluate the impact of HPV vaccine schedules on the prevalence of this virus on SA adolescent girls.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) causes cervical cancer, the leading cancer amongst women aged 15-44.
The study by the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) will evaluate the impact of two-dose and one-dose HPV vaccination schedules on community level HPV prevalence in South African adolescent girls.
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2020
2020
Wits was the first South African University to publish clinical data on COVID-19 in South Africa
The Wits Journal of Clinical Medicine, published by Wits University Press under open access conditions, presents the first clinical data on COVID-19 published in South Africa. The special issue covers a range of aspects of the pandemic, from the clinical, through ethical, to the social dynamics of its impact.
Wits researchers launch most comprehensive COVID-19 dashboard in South Africa
The dashboard is aimed at informing government, scientists, the media and general public with quick, easy-to-understand information on the current situation.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Wits University has launched the most comprehensive data dashboard on the COVID-19 virus in South Africa to date.
The dashboard, that shows the latest statistics on how the virus is affecting the population of South Africa, is updated on a daily basis, using official statistics from both local sources, such as the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and international sources such as the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Wits PhD student develops novel infection control solution
New self-sanitising surface coating will help to address infection control in hospitals, food processing plants and public transport surfaces.
The Antimicrobial Coating Technology by PhD student Michael Lucas, now in its fifth year of development, is a novel solution to address the problem of nosocomial infections. These infections, acquired during hospital stays, are a significant and persistent issue faced by hospitals across the world.
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2021
2021
Wits-educated billionaire launches R3-billion vaccine development project in SA
Wits University alumnus and South African-born biotech billionaire, Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong, has officially launched the ambitious R3-billion initiative to build capacity for advanced health care in Africa.
Wits is one of the leading universities to benefit from this partnership that will focus on the rapid clinical development of next generation vaccines for infectious diseases, including Covid-19 vaccines, and cancer at centres of excellence across the country.
Wits has already identified the establishment of a new Centre of Excellence in Oncology and the Wits Infectious Diseases Research Institute in the Faculty of Health Sciences. The initiative is driven by NantAfrica, a division of NantWorks which is Soon-Shiong’s multinational, California-based conglomerate that is leading the digital revolution in healthcare, technology and media through the harnessing of science, digital infrastructure, supercomputing and communication.
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2022
2022
SA research leads to new WHO guidelines for improved TB treatment https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2022/2022-05/sa-research-leads-to-new-who-guidelines-for-improved-tb-treatment.html
The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced key changes to the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), a significant development which will benefit patients with DR-TB in SA and globally. Treatment time has been slashed from 18 months to six, the number of pills reduced from 23 a day to 23 per week, painful injections eliminated and side-effects reduced.
Under the leadership of Dr Norbert Ndjeka, recently appointed by SA’s National Department of Health as chief director of TB, much of this pivotal research was conducted by the University of the Witwatersrand and the Clinical HIV Research Unit (CHRU) as part of clinical trials including the Nix-TB and ZeNix studies conducted by the Global TB Alliance. The trials mostly conducted in SA produced robust data which changed international policy.