The Department of Science and Technology would invest R40-million, over four years, in the roll out of the laboratory, which would be built at the University of Cape Town's Institute for Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine .
South Africa submitted its bid proposal in May, along with Nigeria and Tanzania, to host the African component of the ICGEB. The other two components were hosted in Trieste, in Italy, and New Delhi, in India.
Hosting one of the three international research laboratories would strengthen South Africa's role in driving Africa's development from not only a political and economic perspective, but also in terms of innovation and technology, Magena said at a press conference in Pretoria, Tshwane.
He reported that the ICGEB would enhance South Africa's efforts towards the development of an African biotechnology hub, in a bid to tackle, among other things, the disease burden of the developing world, the agricultural challenges of poor yields, producing in difficult climatic conditions and enhancing the continent's post-harvest capacities. The laboratory would also be used to further develop South Africa's manufacturing and industrial sectors.
The ICGEB places emphasis on health-related research, as well as on projects towards the sustainable application of biotechnology in agriculture. Mangena reported that the current focus was on HIV and Aids, hepatitis, rotavirus, human papiloma virus, malaria, tuberculosis and dongue.
“This will contribute to global efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals and stop and reverse the spread of HIV and Aids, malaria and other diseases by 2015,” he said.
The laboratory's research was expected to help scientists determine the mechanisms relating to infections and the insurgence of diseases at the molecular level.
“This type of research is leading to important breakthroughs in the understanding of these diseases and possibility of the identification of diagnostic and specific drugs, if not vaccines.”
Magena said that the other two African bids were of high quality and that he hoped that Africa would further unite in the joint development of the continent's science and technology capacity.
The ICGEB is an intergovernmental organisation that operates in close contact with the UN Common System as a centre for research and training in biotechnology and genetic engineering, with special attention to the developing world's needs.
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