After studying in Cuba and in Graz as a North-South Dialogue scholarshipholder, Gibson Nyanhongo from Zimbabwe found his scientific home at the IFA Tulln, a branch of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna. Already as a pupil fascinated by microbiology, his teachers owed him many a deeper answer. He had almost no other option than to become a biotechnologist and to give these answers to himself.

Today he is primarily conducting research on enzymes, the microscopic catalysts that make life on this planet possible. Every day these enzymes challenge him anew, just as he does them and in the end it often does not come out what he and his colleagues expected, but something much more exciting, such as smart hydrogels for medical use.

In between, Gibson Nyanhongo helped at the University of Botswana to set up a new department for biology and biotechnology. Based on his experiences there, he draws a not entirely positive but quite hopeful picture of microbiological research in Africa.