Professor Marena Manley, winner of the CST-SA Excellence in Cereal Science and Technology Research and Development Prize, presented a paper to SAAFoST members and students at the University of Pretoria in February.
Professor Marena Manley was recently awarded the CST-SA Excellence in Cereal Science and Technology Research and Development Prize (CST-SA Excellence Prize). It is awarded to an SA citizen who has achieved sustained excellence in his or her field over the past five years. Having said this, Professor Marena’s excellence has been a sustainable entity for much longer than that.
‘When did it all start?’ asked Professor Marena of herself at the beginning of her presentation. ‘In the time we could still write and speak and publish in Afrikaans’, she answered.
Manley was born not that long ago in the small town of Cradock in the Eastern Cape. After obtaining her BSc in Food Science from Stellenbosch University, she said, she joined the Small Grain Centre (currently ARC-Small Grain Institute) in Bethlehem in the Eastern Free State.
After two years there, Professor Marena took a year’s unpaid leave to study towards her BSc Agriculture Honours degree at the University of Pretoria. ‘I then joined the Wheat Board in Pretoria, during which time I obtained my Master’s degree’, she said.
Marena was fortunate in obtaining a grant to do her doctoral studies in near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy at the University of Plymouth in the UK. ‘The opportunity to study abroad opened the world to me,’ she said, ‘and was the start of what I have achieved to date.’
After 18 months at an NIR spectroscopy instrument company in the UK, Professor Marena joined Stellenbosch University in 1997, where she established the NIR spectroscopy and cereal-quality research programme. A bilateral grant from the National Research Foundation allowed the research also to include NIR hyperspectral imaging.
‘Last year was a really good and special year as many years of hard work seemed to pay off’, explained Marena on her promotion from senior lecturer to full professor. ‘Presenting my inaugural lecture was really exciting as for the first time, could show my friends and family what I do when I am too busy to spend time with them.’
Her latest achievement has been the CST-SA Excellence Prize. After acknowledging Professor John Taylor and Dr Janet Taylor for keeping the CST-SA association alive, Marena said, ‘It has been really special to be acknowledged in this way for the work I have done together with my research students – the NIRds, as they call themselves. Initiatives by CST-SA, such as this one, are making a huge contribution to the development of cereal research in SA and I am sure it will impact increasingly significantly on the local cereal industry.’
Drawing a correlation between her research into NIR spectroscopy and NIR hyperspectral imaging technology to her involvement in the postgraduate programmes at the University of Stellenbosch, Marena emphasised, ‘I always say this: I never know what’s more important – should we have more research programmes or should we have more postgraduate programmes? In the end, we cannot have the one without the other.’
Marena and her 12 NIRds are currently working on 10 projects focusing on the quality of the maize, wheat, barley, oats and sorghum cereals. They are also working with NIR spectroscopy and NIR hyperspectral imaging. ‘You can visualise your data,’ she said of hyperspectral imaging, ‘It’s a really interesting technique because you’re working with pictures.’
Of these ‘chemical pictures’ Marena said, ‘One image can keep a student busy for two to three months! The use of this technique is relatively new in food research and it is really exciting to be involved with investigations using such a novel technique. It has offered quite a few of the NIRds the opportunity to travel and perform research in Sweden.’
Of the work food scientists are doing, Marena referred to the University of Copenhagen Food Science Department’s slogan: ‘If you think rocket science is difficult, try food science!’
‘We’re making the invisible visible’, she said.
Marena is passionate about her role as supervisor to postgraduate students at Stellenbosch, where she is moulding students for industry. With regard to NIR research, she believes there will be imaging equipment in SA in food factories to determine food safety and quality.’
I asked Professor Marena what she aims to achieve in the future (if there could possibly be any more)? She said, ‘I achieved what I have because I was given opportunities by a number of people at the right time of my life. The fact that I worked really hard and long hours, especially during the last five years, might have contributed a bit as well! The best about where I am now is that I do not need to work as hard towards my own achievements any more. I will aim to maintain the level of work done in the past, but it is now the time to assist others (students and younger colleagues) with opportunities to reach their goals.’
Next year, SA plays host in May to NIR 2011at the Cape Town ICC. Marena said that an immediate goal of hers is to host a successful, enjoyable and memorable NIR 2011 for the NIR community. ‘It is the 15th International Conference on NIR spectroscopy and the first time it will be hosted in Africa and only the third time it is hosted in the southern hemisphere. It is really important to me to show the rest of the world the best South Africa has to offer!’
To read more about what Professor Marena and her NIRds get up to, go to http://academic.sun.ac.za/foodsci/MM_Research Group.htm
R: Could you briefly explain NIR spectroscopy and NIR hyperspectral imaging? What does this technology mean for the cereals industry? What does it mean to you and to the ‘NIRds’?
M: NIR spectroscopy is a technique that has been used in the cereal industry for many years. It is an environmentally-friendly method which could be used instead of wet chemistry methods. It needs to be calibrated for a specific measurement, though, and it is important that these calibrations are maintained. For example, it can be calibrated to measure protein and moisture content in wheat or flour in a few seconds. One of the great advancements was when NIR measurements could be done on whole grain, making the grinding of the samples no longer necessary.
NIR hyperspectral imaging is a novel technique and not used commercially in the cereal industry as yet. It is a combination of NIR spectroscopy and digital imaging where one basically takes a ‘chemical picture’ of a sample. This means that each pixel consists of a spectrum in the NIR region. This is especially valuable for inspecting heterogeneous samples. It is especially useful when you want to detect irregularities in food samples or the distribution of a specific component. The addition of the spatial dimension allows this. It can, for a start, play an important role in breeding programmes as the technique is non-destructive. With the development currently seen in imaging equipment, I am sure it will soon be seen as part of on-line quality control in industry.
