About Eu-Sol
Find out more about this project.
An introduction to the aims of EU-SOL and how we plan to achieve them. Plus read about the organisations and people working on this project.
ZA: University of Pretoria
The front entrance of the University of Pretoria
Photographer: Unknown. Copyright free
Location: Pretoria, South Africa
About Us
The University of Pretoria is a leading research University in South Africa, celebrating its Centenary this year. It is one of the largest universities in the country with student numbers in 2006 totalling 49226. The University is divided over six campuses and has a number of other sites of operation such as the Pretoria Academic Hospital. More than 2000 academic programmes are on offer from the nine academic faculties and a business school. The faculties comprise a total of 140 departments and 85 centres, institutes and bureaus. UP is at the forefront of tertiary education in the country and we collaborate with world-class partners to ensure continued excellence in learning, teaching and research.
University of Pretoria and Eu-Sol
Our contribution to the EU-SOL project is carried out by researchers in the Department of Plant Science, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at the University of Pretoria. We are applying a technology called “DNA chips” to the genetic improvement of tomato. A robot is used to spot thousands of tomato DNA fragments onto a glass surface the size of a microscope slide. We use the DNA chips, which have the technical name of “Diversity Arrays”, to understand genetic differences between wild and domesticated tomato species, as well as to identify tomato genes for health traits in tomato fruit such as vitamin C and anti oxidants.
Staff (working on EU-SOL)
- Prof. Dave Berger
- Dr. Antoinette van Schalkwyk
- Miss. Erika van der Walt
