How our research will impact you

Dr Janani Loum (PhD in  Chemistry)

Dr Loum studied some known dye-yielding plants in Uganda to promote their application in the textile sector. He developed a novel procedure for quantification of dyes from plant extracts and optimised their extraction and dyeing variables. In addition, he conducted adsorption-kinetic studies of mordant dyeing process for cotton and silk fabrics. He concluded that optimised variables for extraction and applications are unique to a given plant and fabric and that better colour characteristics is attainable by optimisation of variables. He also established that, dyeing of fabrics follows Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models hence it is favourable and there’s formation of monolayers on fibres. Kinetic studies revealed that dyeing follows pseudo second order reaction model therefore it is a chemisorption whose rate can be improved by increase in concentration of dye in dye-bath.

Dr Justus Murokore Biryomumaisho (PhD in Biochemistry)

Dr Biryomumaisho determined aflatoxin susceptible food consumption frequency, prevalence and levels of aflatoxins in Southwestern Uganda foods and determined phenolic, and flavonoid contents and antioxidant capacity of selected medicinal plants and assessed the plant’s ameliorative effects on aflatoxin induced changes in liver, kidney and immune system. He found that groundnut and maize flours are the most frequently consumed and most contaminated. He found that aflatoxins destroy immune cells, especially neutrophils, which are the most numerous and most important component of innate immune response. He further found that longer extraction periods and processed medicinal plants generate higher phenolic content, and that these plants ameliorate aflatoxin effects on the liver and the immune system to different extents.

Dr Jane Y Nagayi Kalule  (PhD in Zoology and Fisheries Sciences)

She studied the body changes of three populations of Oreochromis esculentus (Ngege) to rising temperature through experimental protocol of acclimation. The species was very important in the commercial fishery of Lakes Victoria and Kyoga but its critically endangered hence, there is urgent need for its conservation. The findings showed increased oxygen consumption rate, lactic acid and amylase activity at higher temperature but, serum glucose and protein, body condition and specific growth rate decreased, implying lower fishery production at higher temperature.

Dr Benson Oloya  (PhD in Chemistry)

Dr Oloya carried out bioprospecting for anti-mycobacterial compounds from Acacia hockii, Albizia coriaria, Combretum molle, Warburgia ugandensis, and Zanthoxylum leprieurii. Isolation/purification and structure elucidation of the compounds were performed using chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques, respectively. The plant extracts exhibited promising anti-mycobacterial activity and low acute toxicity, except for A. coriaria. The findings of this study justify the ethnopharmacological use of the selected plants’ parts to treat tuberculosis.

Dr Douglas Ongeri Ochora (PhD in Biochemistry)

He investigated the ex vivo and in vitro antiplasmodial activities of extracts and pure compounds from Securidaca longipedunculata Fresen (Polygalaceae). His research was driven by the use of S. longipedunculata for treatment of malaria in traditional medicine in African countries including Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Burkina Faso The observed synergism and high antiplasmodial activities of the species indicate its potential use as an alternative antimalarial drug in controlling the occurrence of antimalarial drug resistance.

Dr Mark Olokotum  (PhD in Zoology and Fisheries Sciences)

Dr Olokotum examined the dynamics of the cyanobacterial and the potential toxicity of the blooms in Lake Victoria. Due to cyanobacterial blooms and the ability to produce cyanotoxins, eutrophication threatens the ecological health of freshwater ecosystems. The results indicated that Murchison Bay is more impacted by eutrophication than the open lake resulting in much higher microcystin concentrations. The potential health threat stems from consuming untreated water and engaging in recreational activities. The study also demonstrated that microcystins are transferred and accumulate in Nile tilapia, with concentrations that could exceed the tolerable daily intake proposed by the World Health Organisation.

Dr Abubakar Sadik Mustafa  (PhD in Microbiology and Plant Pathology)

Dr Mustafa’s research focused on callose, a vital and unique polysaccharide, made by plants when subjected to stress. He develop a new method for quantifying callose based on enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), utilizing callose-specific antibodies. The new method is specific, highly sensitive, less cumbersome and enables high-throughput callose analysis. Mr. Mustafa also investigated the possible role of callose in restricting the movement of Xanthomonas vasicola pv musacearum (Xvm) to the lateral shoots. The Xvm bacterium causes banana Xanthomonas wilt disease (BXW). Highest callose production was in the corms and this pointed to the role of the corm in restricting Xvm entry into lateral shoots. These findings hold the key to breeding BXW-resistant cultivars through enhanced callose production. This aligns with the broader Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), particularly SDG 1, SDG 2 and SDG 3.

Dr Jaffer Okiring (PhD in Health Science)

Dr Okiring compared correlations between Test positivity rate (TPR), Total laboratory confirmed cases of malaria (TCM) and malaria incidence, and investigated how environmental covariates and gender affect these estimates in high malaria transmission areas of Uganda. He found that temporal changes in TCM correlated better with changes in malaria incidence compared to TPR. He argues that TCM is a better estimate of malaria burden overtime and concludes that his findings demonstrate variability of routinely reported metrics, effect of environmental covariates and gender on incidence of diagnosed malaria around public health facilities which may need to be considered while planning for control interventions to fight malaria burden.

Dr Wycliff Ssebunjo  (PhD in Mathematics)

Dr Ssebunjo reconstructed brain tumour origin and brain tumour treatment parameter given later date brain tumour data. Simulation results from numerical experiments and error analysis show that improved reconstructions of both the origin of brain tumour and treatment parameter can be obtained via the non-linear conjugate gradient method.

Dr Edward Bwayo (PhD in Physics)

Dr Bwayo investigated the effect of thickness and deposition angle on spectrally selective nanostructures for the regulation of infrared radiation and visibility indoors. The study found that the transmittance of ZnS/Ag samples in the visible region decreased with increase in film thickness from 61.7 percent to 18.0 percent. The reflectance increased from 35 percent in the visible range to 54 percent in the infrared region. The effective refractive index increased from 3.25 the visible spectrum to 6.2 in the infrared spectrum which indicates that the nanofilms are transparent to visible light. The extinction coefficient increased from an average 0.2 at wavelength of 400nm toward the infrared spectral range. The increase in deposition angle of silver increased the energy band of the nanofilms from 3.52 to 3.99 eV.

Dr Collins Anguzu (PhD in Mathematics)

He investigated centrality measures based on the powers of the adjacency matrix, such as degree, beta, alpha, Katz, cumulative nomination, PageRank, and eigenvector centralities. The findings revealed that the proposed algorithm outperformed the conventional power method and could efficiently compute centrality measures for large graphs.