Different Departments

Different Departments

Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town

ANAESTHESIA

Cardiac anaesthesia

Cardiac surgery

Liver transplants

Separation of conjoined twins

Multi-discipline Paediatric Intensive Care Unit

Supports following ICUs

Respiratory intensive care unit

Surgical intensive care unit

Centre for Pain Management

Patients with chronic pain

Acute pain service available for postoperative patients

CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENT HEALTH

Full range of paediatric disciplines

•Paediatric medicine •Paediatric surgery •Paediatric nursing •Paediatric pathology •Paediatric radiology •Paediatric anaesthetics •Paediatric pulmonology

Children’s public health

Psychiatry in maternal and child health

Child and adolescent psychiatry

Child health unit

Critical care and children’s heart disease

Clinical Services:

Ambulatory and emergency

Gastroentenology, heptatology and nutrition

Haematology / oncology

Infectious diseases and immunology

Nuclear medicine

CLINICAL LABORATORY SCIENCES

A. ANATOMICAL PATHOLOGY

Diseases common in SA:

• Tuberculosis • Cardiomyopathy • Foetal-alcohol syndrome

Various cancers:

• Oesophageal • Gastric • Breast • Cervical • Colorectal and hepatocellular carcinomas • Childhood cancers

Renal and liver pathology

Neonatal pathology

Immunohistochemisty

Electron microscopy

B. CHEMICAL PATHOLOGY

Deals with metabolic disease

Basic biochemistry

Molecular biology

C. FORENSIC MEDICINE AND TOXICOLOGY

Violence against women and children

Role of drugs and toxins in death

Firearm injuries

D. HAEMATOLOGY

Outpatient clinics

Diagnostic and research laboratories

E. HUMAN GENETICS

Primary health care in community outreach clinics

Highly sophisticated quaternary services

Heritable disorders which cause childhood handicap incl:

• Blindness • Crippling • Profound deafness • Mental retardation

Clinical rotations in prenatal, paediatric and adult medical genetics incl exposure to:

• Dysmorphology • Teratogenic disorders • Metabolic disorders • Neurogenetics • Cardiogenetics • Cancer genetics

Theoretic and practical education in genetic counselling and communication

Lab rotations in cytogenetics and molecular genetics

F. IMMUNOLOGY

Immunology of infectious diseases

Innate immunity and allergy

Important advances in diseases e.g.

• Tuberculosis • Bilharzia • African Trypanosomiasis • T-cell cykotine responses to allergens (immunotherapy) and mTB protein • Clinical trials in UCT Lung Institute conducted in areas of: o Antihistamines o Asthma o Eczema

G. MEDICAL BIOCHEMISTRY

GnRH receptors, signalling, structure function and as target for development of therapeutics for treatment of reproductive cancers

Role of cyclooxygenases and prostaglandins in cervical cancer and other uterine pathologies

Identification of differentially regulated genes associated with the development of cervical cancer

The role of the transcription factor AP-1 in oncogenesis

Molecular mechanisms involved in the development and maintenance of oesophageal cancer

Identification and characterisation of novel compounds that can be used in the treatment of cancer

Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) Structure activity relationships and development of ACE inhibitors for treatment of hypertension, congestive heart failure, myocardial infarction and renal disease

Application of functional proteomics for diagnostics, drug and vaccine development for infectious disease and cancers

H. MEDICAL VIROLOGY

referral laboratory for a large proportion of the regional virus identification

members are part of national and international programmes to:

• discover an effective vaccine against HIV • developed candidate HIV vaccines that have been tested in clinical trials

participates in the WHO human papillomavirus laboratory network (Labnet)

collaborating partner in the WHO African AIDS Vaccine Collaborative Centre in Biomedical Research

interest in working on development of novel diagnostic tools for some of the more neglected but still clinically relevant viral diseases that are common in Africa

I. MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY

full range of microbiological diagnostic services including state-of-the-art molecular diagnostics

involved in research activities:

• basic science • clinical and diagnostic trials

defining the epidemiology and strain biology of major infectious diseases in Southern Africa

Important areas of research focus on:

• Tuberculosis • Bacterial antibiotic resistance • Nosocomial pathogens • Outbreak surveillance

developing and evaluating novel diagnostics which are applicable in low-resource settings