I completed my undergraduate studies as well as the Honors and Masters degrees at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.  Here I received the Merck price for the best Honors student.  This degree was furthermore done in collaboration with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).  The aim of the Hons degree was the characterisation and heterologous expression of bacterial enzymes such as esterases, lipases and acid phosphatases.  The Masters study focussed on reclassifying South African lupin anthracnose isolates and cloning and characterisation of the cell wall degrading enzyme endopolygalacturonase from a South African lupin anthracnose isolate.  I joined the CSIR after completing my Masters degree.  I was initially involved in projects that focussed on the expression of enzymes in bacterial systems.  Later I moved on to another division that researched the production of pharmaceutically important molecules in plant platforms.  I found this area fascinating and apart from working on different CSIR projects in this area I also decided to pursue a PhD in collaboration with the University of Cape Town on a part time basis.  The PhD study involved the recombinant production of one of the most potent HIV lectins known to man; namely Griffithsin, in plant platforms such as maize and tobacco.  During my PhD studies I formally joined the CSIR as a permanent employee in 2006 in what is now the “Biomanufacturing Technologies” group.  As a senior researcher in this group I have been involved in several projects where the focus was on the production of different types of molecules that add value to industry, human and veterinary health applications and environmental diagnostics.  These molecules include antibodies, chimeric antibodies, vaccine epitopes, adjuvants, fusion molecules and virus like particles (VLP’s) produced in yeast, bacteria or plants using trending expression vectors and hosts.  I also mentored technicians and students.  After leaving the CSIR in 2017 I joined the research group of Prof. Celia Abolnik (University of Pretoria), the SARChI chair in Poultry Health and Production, as a post-doctoral fellow in 2018.  My role here is to develop specific antibodies, suitable for production in plants, to be used in immune complexes for avian viral diseases.