GASNAT SHABOODIEN

I was born and raised in Cape Town. I am married and now, ten years later, have 3 very active, inquisitive children – try listening to 3 ‘why?’s at the same time!

I pursued my undergraduate studies at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), where I did a double major in Biochemistry and Microbiology. I then went on to do a BSc (Hons) in Food Microbiology, also at UWC. I subsequently left UWC to do an MSc in genetics at the University of Cape Town (UCT) at Red Cross Children’s Hospital. I completed by MSc and then spent a year at Tygerberg in the Medical Biochemistry Department, working on the genetics of TB. But my love for anything to do with human genetics drew me to the Division of Human Genetics at UCT where I also spent a year. The following year I started a fascinating PhD project with Professor Bongani Mayosi and I’ve never looked back since.

Research Project

I am currently working on establishing a functional assay that determines protein-protein interactions in the plakophilin-2 (PKP-2) gene.