OD11 digital HR - Flipbook - Page 41
THE COLUMN
John Woodland (2005K) is a scientist, musician and broadcaster.
He is currently a researcher at the Holistic Drug Discovery and Development
Centre at UCT, and a fellow of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular
Medicine. A former Claude Brown Organ Scholar at Bishops, he now directs the
choral group VOX Cape Town, broadcasts weekly on Fine Music Radio and
enjoys a close association with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra.
should come away with at least
a basic understanding of science
and what it does for us, and an
appreciation of how important
science is to telling us who we
are, where we’re going and how
we solve problems in the world.”
Over the past five centuries,
the scientific method – careful
observation coupled with rigorous
scepticism – has emerged as the
most effective way of solving
problems. But such a process
is not unique to science; surely it
is also how musicians, poets and
artists do their work? Analogous
to the way in which scientists may
select and examine a hypothesis
they may later reject, artists may
also “test” their ideas and creative
impulses in a way that may lead to
those expressions being developed,
shelved or discarded.
My own research spans various
aspects of chemistry and biology.
At the drug discovery centre
at UCT where I am based, we
develop safe and efficacious
new medicines for diseases
that especially afflict the African
content, such as malaria. Even
after centuries of effort, malaria
remains a devastating infectious
disease. Historically, drugs were
discovered serendipitously and
were usually isolated from natural
sources. Today, drug discovery
efforts take many years and cost
hundreds of millions of dollars,
requiring the input of dozens of
specialist scientists. Fortunately,
the lessons we are learning from
malaria can also be applied to
other diseases, including potential
pandemics – augmented, these
A chemical biologist in his natural habitat – illuminating the intricate cellular
structures of human malaria parasites using confocal fluorescence microscopy.
days, by the integration of artificial
intelligence and machine learning
into our scientific toolkits.
But, paraphrasing an idea you
may have heard in a Brooke Chapel
sermon: “Man(kind) cannot live by
molecules alone…” Since my own
days of singing in the Chapel Choir
and playing Bishops’s magnificent
organ – its three-manual “King of
Instruments” – I have attempted
to build a musical community
through my own choral ensemble,
VOX Cape Town. This year, as we
celebrate our 10th anniversary and
look back over 100 performances
under our belts, ranging from
wine-and-music pairings to
concerts sung in the dark or
inspired by the Karoo, we have
brought our unique brand of
fresh, multisensory, immersive
musical experiences to thousands
of Capetonians. Perhaps our most
memorable project was a joint
enterprise with fellow OD Richard
Cock (1966O) who joined us from
Johannesburg with his Chanticleer
Singers. We presented richly
sonorous music by Rachmaninoff,
Tchaikovsky and others for more
than 650 guests in the candlelit
grandeur of the Memorial Chapel
– a space that has also influenced
many of Bishops’s finest composers,
such as John Joubert (1944O),
Grant McLachlan (1973F) and
Stephen Carletti (1983G).
You, the reader, may have
experienced the ambivalence
(and sometimes opposition)
between the performing arts
and the sciences – but there
are powerful analogies between
the two. From personal experience,
I know that the same way
a conductor brings together
musicians under his baton,
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