Professor Nicolaas Claudius (Nico) Gey van Pittius VI is currently the Vice Dean of Research and Internationalisation in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, with an extensive portfolio which includes all aspects of research, postgraduate research studies (MSc and PhD degrees), internationalisation, and innovation (including intellectual property and technology transfer).  He is also the Acting Head of (and a full Professor of Molecular Biology in) the Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics of the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Stellenbosch University, and a core member of both the National Research Foundation (NRF) Centre of Excellence in Biomedical Tuberculosis Research (CBTBR) and the Medical Research Council Centre for Tuberculosis Research (CTR), hosted by Stellenbosch University.  After obtaining his BSc Biochemistry and Microbiology (cum laude), BSc Hons Biochemistry (cum laude) and MSc Biochemistry degrees from the University of Potchefstroom, and his PhD Medical Biochemistry degree from Stellenbosch University, he spent some years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, before being appointed Senior Researcher, later Associate Professor, and finally Full Professor of Molecular Biology at the Department of Biomedical Sciences of Stellenbosch University.  He continued studying part time while working, obtaining a Certificate in Intellectual Property Law (cum laude) and an LLB degree (cum laude) from the University of South Africa, and the degrees LLM, MBA and MPhil (cum laude) from Stellenbosch University.  He was rated as a South African National Research Foundation (NRF) B-rated (internationally acclaimed) researcher and was elected to membership of both the ‘Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns’ (South African Academy for Science and Arts, in 2006 at the young age of 33 years) and the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) (in 2010, at the age of 37 years). He is the Chair of the Provincial Health Research Committee (PHRC) of the Western Cape, a member of the National Health Research Committee (NHRC) and is also a member of several other national and international scientific societies and committees, such as the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD). Prof Gey van Pittius is a molecular mycobacteriologist who has worked on tuberculosis for more than 20 years, specifically focusing on the mechanisms of evolution of the mycobacteria and the development of mycobacterial pathogenicity and drug resistance. He has co-authored over 100 papers, book chapters and other communications on various aspects of tuberculosis, with over 5 700 citations, a Scopus h-index of 45 (Google Scholar h-index of 53) and is a co-inventor of two granted and three provisional patents in the field. He has supervised numerous postgraduate students on all levels over the years and taught postgraduate modules in intellectual property law, bioinformatics, genomics and genome variation. His work has been presented in oral and poster form at more than 40 international and nearly 100 national conferences and meetings, and he has been invited to present lectures at numerous institutions worldwide.