Anza-Tshilidzi Ramabulana

About

I am Anza-Tshilidzi Ramabulana, a PhD candidate in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Johannesburg and a Laboratory technician in the Department of Nutrition at the University of Venda. I was born and raised in Limpopo, Venda and went on to pursue my undergraduate and post graduate studies at the University of Johannesburg. My journey in metabolomics began during my MSc studies under the supervision of Prof Ian Dubery and Prof Ntakadzeni Edwin Madala. The study was titled “Phytochemical profiling of secondary metabolites from Bidens pilosa Plants and cell cultures”. The research provided metabolomic insights and new information to the knowledge pool of hydroxycinnamic acids and associated chlorogenic acids of the phytochemically-rich Bidens pilosa (Mushidzhi/ blackjack). In this study, we employed UHPLC-QTOF-MS/MS-Based In-Source Collision-Induced Dissociation to distinguish between the isomers of the metabolites identified in blackjack. This research resulted in the publication of 3 peer-reviewed articles. Post my masters graduation, I started my PhD under the supervision of Dr Fidele Tugizimana, Prof Ntakadzeni Madala, Dr Daniel Petras and Prof Ian Dubery. The PhD project is titled Metabolomics and computational tools to characterize the metabolomes of Momordica species.

This research is being performed at the University of Johannesburg in collaboration with the Biochemistry and Microbiology Department at the University of Venda. This collaboration has allowed me to gain extensive experience working with the Shimadzu liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer situated at the University of Venda. In my PhD project, I am applying computational tools in metabolomics to unravel the natural product space of Momordica species. This project has not only grown my interest in computational metabolomics but also in the optimization of analytical methodologies to improve insights into complex metabolomes. While pursuing my PhD studies, I was employed at the University of Venda in the Department of Nutrition as a Laboratory technician operating the Shimadzu liquid chromatography triple quadrupole mass spectrometer among other instruments.