Priyen Pillay

I was awarded a Matric Exemption with Distinction and pursued a BSc degree in Biotechnology at the University of Pretoria (UP). I was then accepted by UP Genetics Department for a Honours degree in Biotechnology conducting research under Professors Mike & Brenda Wingfield and Dr Marieka Gryzenhout to identify a new Ceratocystis species (causes oak wilt in trees). I then joined Professor Karl Kunert at the Plant Science Department for an MSc study in Plant Biotechnology working on plant-based expression of the vaccine antigen VP1 from Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV), which causes significant economic losses for many countries worldwide. I then started my PhD with Professors Kunert and Vorster working on proteolytic enzymes that cause irreparable damage to plant-made pharmaceuticals (PMPs) in Nicotiana benthamiana (tobacco) during the plant-made pharmaceutical production process mediated through Agroinfiltration (method used in plant biotechnology. I am currently a Senior Researcher at the CSIR Chemicals Cluster, Technology Demonstration group under Dr Tsepo Tsekoa. We are involved in genome editing, metagenomics as well as plant biopharming.