PhD Candidate

Nosipho’s research is aimed at advancing current insights regarding the functional gene repertoire of microbiomes in the South Atlantic Ocean. Specifically, Nosipho is interested in identifying carotenoid biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) in highly productive marine environments along the west African coast. Her research will apply machine learning algorithms to predict novel carotenoid BGCs in bacterial metagenomes. In addition to using bioinformatics to predict carotenoid BGCs, Nosipho’s research aims to functionally characterise them through expression in heterologous hosts.