Welcome to the Medical Research Council's Research Conference

The MRC is a national organisation with offices in Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban and a rural centre at Hlabisa in KwaZulu-Natal. It supports a core of 250 scientists plus 100 technologists operating through 22 units (based at universities, including a quarter at historically disadvantaged institutions), research centres and 15 research programmes which are led by internationally recognized scientists and function as centers of excellence. A total of 500 research projects are undertaken with approximately 100 new projects submitted every year; producing 500 publications, policy briefs and reports annually. The MRC also supports 300 scientists engaged in 300 three-year short-term research projects (self-initiated research), which constitutes a substantial investment in the building of research capacity and the development of science in the region.

Currently, the top research priorities are HIV/AIDS, ethics, tuberculosis, malaria, telemedicine, biotechnology, human genomics, women's health, and a public-health research approach to infectious diseases and crime, violence and injury.

About this event
The Research Capacity Development of the SA Medical Research Council is hosting an MRC Research Day for health–related research in South Africa to be held at the MRC headquarters in Parow on 19 & 20 October 2011.

After successful events in 2007 - 2010 and the interest received, the event will allow for a much broader audience. These 2 days aims to recognize excellent research undertaken at organization/institutions.

Target Audience
The target audience should be listed as Young scientist and MRC Interns who will be profiling and showcasing their research. It was also proposed that on the abstract form we have a question: MRC funded Researchers indicating a yes or no as this could indicate the interest from the interns.

Theme

  • Celebrating the next generation in health research excellence

Thematic areas

  • Public Health – epidemiology, observational studies etc
  • Clinical – diagnostics, disease intervention and treatment
  • Biomedical – basic and laboratory sciences
  • Translational Research – public understanding of science

Who should attend
All MRC students/bursars are welcome to attend by submitting an abstract. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee. Lecturers of students will be listed on student’s abstract application forms, therefore all lecturers of students are also welcome to attend.

MRC staff interested in attending this event must please register via the online registration form.