Elected: 2018
Country (Nationality)
Zimbabwe
Discipline
Biosciences
Bio
Adrienne Lesley Edkins is Associate Professor in Biochemistry and NRF/DST SARChI Chair in Molecular and Cellular Biology of the Eukaryotic Stress Response (since 2015) in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at Rhodes University. She also holds a Newton Advanced Fellowship (2018-2021) from the Newton Fund of the Royal Academy of Medical Sciences, and is Director of the Biomedical Biotechnology Research Unit (BioBRU) at Rhodes University. She obtained her PhD from the University of Glasgow on the Wellcome Trust PhD programme in Molecular Functions in Disease (2008) under the supervision of Prof Bill Cushley.
An NRF-rated scientist (Y1, 2014-2019), Adrienne’s research centres on molecular, cell biological and biochemical approaches to understanding fundamental mechanisms of the stress response in normal and disease conditions, with an emphasis on cancer and stem cell biology. She has trained 5 postdoctoral fellows and 39 MSc/PhD students, and produced over 43 peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 science engagement articles, 8 book chapters and 3 edited books in this field (2018). She is an editorial board member for the Cancer Panel of the journal Scientific Reports (2018-2020).
Adrienne has been recognised for her research with the VC Distinguished Research Medal from Rhodes University (2015) and the South African Women in Science (SAWiSA) Award for Distinguished Young Scientist in the Natural/Engineering Sciences from the South African DST (2018).
Adrienne is also a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), the Royal Society of South Africa and the South Africa Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SASBMB). She served on the Council of SASBMB from 2014-2018.