My main research interests are presently in making human and animal vaccine candidates in plants and insect cells: these include vaccines for mucosal Human papillomaviruses (HPV) and Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) subtype C. We also work on characterisation and molecular biology of the parrot Beak and feather disease virus and the possibility of making vaccines and therapeutics for the virus disease. I still have an interest in the diversity of southern African Mastreviruses (family Geminiviridae), the molecular determinants of pathogenicity and host range in these viruses, and especially in Maize streak virus, the use of geminiviruses as vectors of foreign genes in plants, and in the engineering of viral resistance, especially in maize.

	A colourised geminivirus particle: 18 x 30 nm, single coat protein, containing a single molecule of circular single-stranded DNA
	A virus-like particle made from Human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16 L1 major capsid protein expressed in Sf21 insect cells via recombinant baculovirus (70 nm)
	A virus-like particle made from Human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16 L1 major capsid protein expressed in Nicotiana benthamiana via agroinfiltration with recombinant A tumefaciens (~60 nm)
	A virus-like particle made from Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1 subtype C Pr55 Gag protein, budded out of Sf21 cells (~100 nm)

I was once known to climb the odd rock face, and would like to be seen again on a sailboard, although I tend (far!) more these days to walking with dogs, swimming, collecting 1970s rock and reading hard science fiction. I am married to Professor Anna-Lise Williamson of the IIDMM at UCT, and have two children (Steven, 17, and Amanda, 14), and 2 dogs, and 3 cats. Anna-Lise and I collect and grow southern African and other desert succulents. And scale insects, and fungi, and snails.

This version 01/08/2009

I have authored or co-authored some 90 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and another ~20 book chapters, as well as a number of popular or opinion articles and report-backs in journals. I have also deposited a significant number of virus-related nucleic acid sequences in GenBank.

I have been involved since 1994 in writing educational and study material for the Web, and my much-updated Electronic Introduction to Molecular Virology is now in its 13th year! I use it for 2nd and 3rd year teaching, and have partially developed a stand-alone multimedia study/teaching aid using essentially the same material - this is available on request. I wrote the sections on SDS-PAGE, western blotting and PCR, and helped to compile and publish our Departmental Honours Molecular Biology Techniques Manual, now out of print but still partially available on the Web.

I have also written a number of essays and songs for the Web. 
In order of decreasing seriousness and increasing general readability, these are:

• "Emerging and Re-Emerging Virus Diseases: A Challenge for Biotechnology"
• "The Internet as an educational tool: making the Web work for South Africa"
• "The Student, the Web and the Ebola Connection, or: "Dr Jacobson, are you going to Kikwit?"
• "The Wild Researcher Boy" - a song for dissatisfied research personnel.
• "The PhD Blues" (self-explanatory)
• "The Burning Dean Blues"... an inflammatory ditty about University politics.
• "The Station": a short fantasy/SF homage to Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon, Cordwainer Smith, Roger Zelazny and others
• "Tragedy's Children": from the late lamented "HMS Beagle" - what may have happened to the Taung Child

Lately I have also begun contributing to AJ Cann's "Microbiology Bytes" blog site: see the following (and MUCH else) there:

• It’s Life, Jim, but not as we know it… Speculations about alien life - and viruses
• A feeling for the molechism* Attempts to wax philosophical on viruses
• Plus ça change, plus c’est … le same Web, only better? Observations on the ephemeral nature of Web pages
• Rooting the tree: discussion of a recent paper on a new strategy to make HIV vaccines