Noah's Drunkenness (Not my story!)

Kenyan scientist honoured

In a recent event at Southern Yangtze University- China, Mr Cheison of Kenya was honoured for outstanding academic achievements with an award of a plaque and a cash reward. A great honour for hard work and the African budding scientists, Mr. Cheison represents the promise of Africa's struggling scientists. For a man who shook off an early life in which he was condemned to be a herds-boy for hire, Mr. Cheison is widely published in highly respected journals and has promising potential to rise further in the academia. He has since been tempted with an irresistible offer for a postdoctoral research fellowship. For this ambitious man, the sky is surely not the limit.

Increase lecturers' pay and fund research

Universities by virtue of being the rendezvous of the most brilliant are a nest of innovation and provide the most sustainable and scientifically sound driving force in the economic development of any country. Looking at the Nobel prize winners, one sees a link to their home countries and the progresses that those countries have made in some areas of research, innovation and industrialisation. Many universities in the developed world have memoranda of understanding (and undertaking) with industries to undertake industry-relevant research with very immediate impacts on the agro-industries for example. This is where R & D comes in.

Imagine for example that the moribund Dairy Technology Department at Egerton University is contracted by KCC to work out a problem of solving the problem of seasonal glut in milk supply (which drives down the product prices) and the irony of the lack of milk during some time of the year. Then the relevant sections at Egerton go into project proposals and one such proposal says "Milk proteins can be extracted from milk, processed into powder and exported to China where the products are used for drug manufacture". R & D benefits from cheap and skilled technical input, the students earn their degrees while solving the problem and the trickle-down effect is that the farmer gets a secure market for the product because of the multiplier effect of the project results. In this way, the maize sector would benefit from innovations that convert the product to finished fragments such as starch, oil and other functional foods.

Talk of the oil plants. What happened to castor oil plants and sunflower? The collapsed! This in spite of the fact that the universities teach oil and cereal chemistry up to PhD level. One solution to this problem is to reinvigorate research at the universities and organise the same to be results driven. Then the government would drive more funding to research and although the professors are paid a pittance (like here in China), they make millions through innovativeness and technology transfer.

Another aspect is the need for a complete overhaul of the university research system. Indeed I have been Googling those Professors and students who have been earning their PhDs down there and I am disappointed that there is little to show for their claim to degrees. Where are the publications that show-case their research results? How else shall we know what one has been doing? Weed out the deadwood from the universities, DEMAND that Professors present publications as evidence of their activity and to justify the hefty pay demands and then increase a million-fold the research allocation to the universities. The other option is to assign individual professors respective labs and then contact appraisals each year to confirm if there has been any input from those noisemakers who shout loudest. You would be surprised that most of those professors (I shall be one soon) are saddists ready to visit hell on the students. Clean the universities of dead-woods who cannot publish......Publish or perish should be the motto!

List of publications

Publications during this harrowing PhD study.

1. Cheison, S. C. and Wang, Z. (2003). Bioactive Milk Peptides: Redefining the Food-Drug Interphase- Review. Paper 1: Antimicrobial and Immunomodulating Peptides. African Journal of Food, Nutrition Science, Agriculture and Development 3(1): 29-38.

2. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. (2006). Multivariate strategy in screening of enzymes to be used for whey protein hydrolysis in an enzymatic membrane reactor- International Dairy Journal.

3. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. (2006). Hydrolysis of whey protein isolate in a tangential flow filter membrane reactor-I: Characterisation of permeate flux and product recovery by multivariate data analysis- Journal of Membrane Science, 283(1-2):45-56.

4. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. (2006). Use of macroporous adsorption resin for simultaneous desalting and debittering of whey protein hydrolysates -International Journal of Food Science & Technology‑ (Accepted 24 Aug 2006).

5. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. (2006) Use of response surface methodology to optimise the hydrolysis of whey protein isolate in a tangential flow filter membrane reactor- Journal of Food Engineering‑ (Accepted 6 Sep 2006).

6. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. (2006). Hydrolysis of whey protein isolate in a tangential flow filter membrane reactor-II: Characterisation for the fate of the enzyme by multivariate data analysis- Journal of Membrane Science, - (Accepted 7 Oct 2006).

7. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. (2006). Hydrolysis of proteins in ultrafiltration membrane bioreactors: A review of the timeline evolution of the substrates, enzymes and membrane systems –Enzyme and Microbial Technology – (Under review).

8. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. (2006). A Spectrophotometric method for determination of the degree of hydrolysis of whey protein hydrolysed in a tangential flow filter ultrafiltration membrane reactor. Submitted to: International Dairy Journal – (Under review).

9. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. (2006). Immunological and antioxidant properties of desalted whey protein hydrolysates obtained from a single- and two-stage enzymatic membrane reactor: Characterisation by multivariate data analysis- Submitted to Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (Under review).

Publish or Perish!

1. Cheison, S. C. and Wang, Z. (2003). Bioactive Milk Peptides: Redefining the Food-Drug Interphase- Review. Paper 1: Antimicrobial and Immunomodulating Peptides. African Journal of Food, Nutrition Science, Agriculture and Development 3(1): 29-38.

2. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y.(2006). Multivariate strategy in screening of enzymes to be used for whey protein hydrolysis in an enzymatic membrane reactor- International Dairy Journal.

3. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y.(2006). Hydrolysis of whey protein isolate in a tangential flow filter membrane reactor-I: Characterisation of permeate flux and product recovery by multivariate data analysis- Journal of Membrane Science, 283(1-2):45-56.

4. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. (2006). Use of macroporous adsorption resin for simultaneous desalting and debittering of whey protein hydrolysates -International Journal of Food Science & Technology‑ (Accepted 24 Aug 2006).

5. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. Use of response surface methodology to optimise the hydrolysis of whey protein isolate in a tangential flow filter membrane reactor- Journal of Food Engineering‑ (Accepted 6 Sep 2006).

6. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. Hydrolysis of whey protein isolate in a tangential flow filter membrane reactor-II: Characterisation for the fate of the enzyme by multivariate data analysis- Journal of Membrane Science, - (Accepted 7 Oct 2006).

7. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. Hydrolysis of proteins in ultrafiltration membrane bioreactors: A review of the timeline evolution of the substrates, enzymes and membrane systems –Enzyme and Microbial Technology - Submitted 20 Sep 2006.

8. Cheison, S. C., Wang, Z. and Xu, S. Y. A Spectrophotometric method for determination of the degree of hydrolysis of whey protein hydrolysed in a tangential flow filter ultrafiltration membrane reactor. Submitted to the International Dairy Journal - Under review.