Extraordinary Professorship for Gerhard Bringmann
06/29/2018The University of Pretoria has awarded the professor from Würzburg and President of the Scholarship Program BEBUC an Extraordinary Professorship. It is intended to intensify the already most fruitful collaboration between the South‐African University, the German NGO Förderverein Uni Kinshasa e.V. (fUNIKIN), and the University of Würzburg.
It has been only recently that Gerhard Bringmann from the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the University of Würzburg had – on behalf of the NGO and thus for the Scholarship Program BEBUC – signed a cooperation agreement with the University of Pretoria and the University of Würzburg. By the professorship, the joint research and teaching work shall now be expanded, and, simultaneously, the collaboration within the Excellence Scholarship Program BEBUC shall be further strengthened.
The aim of the program is the support of outstanding up‐and‐coming young academics in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. BEBUC presently supports more than 190 excellent students and pupils from 25 Congolese universities and schools, about 40 of them during their current studies abroad. The program is organized by the German NGO Förderverein Uni Kinshasa e.V., which has more than 1920 members from nearly 60 countries. The funding mainly comes from the foundation Else‐Kröner‐Fresenius‐ Stiftung.
About Gerhard Bringmann
Since 1987, Bringmann has been working at the University of Würzburg, as the holder of the Chair of Organic Chemistry I. Since 2017, he has been further active in research and teaching as a senior professor. His main field of work is Natural Products Chemistry – the search for new bioactive compounds from nature, for the fight against infections and tumor diseases. His work is documented in about 730 scientific publications and patents. His innovative achievements have been distinguished by numerous scientific awards, among them the Adolf‐ Windaus Medal for Natural Products Research and the Paul‐J.‐Scheuer Award for Marine Biotechnology. He was also honored for his humanitarian merits supporting young academics in the Congo, i.a. by the Gusi Peace Prize and the Congolese Civic Medal First Class in Gold. Bringmann is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and of the African Academy of Sciences. Four Congolese universities have awarded him honorary doctorates, two Chinese universities (Peking University in Beijing and Jinan University in Guangzhou) have granted him honorary professorships.
About the Professorship
The honorary professorship now awarded to Bringmann is located at the Department of Chemistry, in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences of the University of Pretoria. Current cooperation projects aim at the search for new bioactive agents from tropical plants and their medicinal utilization. In these investigations, several BEBUC scholars are involved. These young academics are scientifically supervised by Bringmann together with his South African colleague Prof. Vinesh Maharaj. In the future, the joint activities shall also be extended to other fields of research.
Outlook
"The professorship will give new impulses to the scholarship program. It will help further BEBUC scholars to do their master or doctoral studies at the University of Pretoria in order then to return to the Congo and to pass on their knowledge to younger students", says Bringmann.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Gerhard Bringmann, Institut für Organische Chemie, Universität Würzburg, T +49 931 31-85323, bringman@chemie.uni-wuerzburg.de
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