Events

Realising women's rights for an equal future.

The South African Association for Laboratory Animal Science NPC (SAALAS) invites you to a unique fully funded in-person workshop that focuses on practical new approaches that enhance scientific quality and improves research outcomes while reducing reliance on animals. Hosted at University of Pretoria, Onderstepoort, this two-day event, being held on 15 & 16 September 2026, will bring together local and international experts to share real-world, implementable non-animal models and technologies that can provide more robust, scientifically relevant data. This initiative is made possible through the generous support of RSPCA, Humane World for Animals South Africa, and the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science, enabling free attendance for participants. Importantly, this programme recognises that animal use cannot always be immediately replaced in every area of science. Instead, the focus is on identifying feasible, locally relevant opportunities where scientifically advanced approaches — including non-animal models — can improve data quality and strengthen research outcomes using existing and/or accessible skills and resources.

This workshop in Bayesian statistics is aimed to provide industry researchers (statisticians as well as domain experts), academicians and students working in medicine and healthcare with an introduction to the topic along with some specific examples and use cases from the pharmaceutical industry. The workshop will focus on translating historical data, for example, from previously conducted randomized clinical trials into informative priors for the parameters of interest which can then be used in the design and analysis of future trials. This approach of ~Bayesian-Borrowing is gaining interest particularly for investigations in rare diseases and for medical devices. We will discuss a common problem of Prior-Data conflict in this setting and methodologies to control borrowing from historical data in the presence of a conflict. We will also be discussing a recently conducted trial COVID vaccine trial that was conducted in the Bayesian framework. The workshop will conclude with a hands-on session implementing a Bayesian design using the open-source R software. Participants are encouraged to install R and the following packages on their laptops prior to attending the workshop: ggplot2, RBesT, parallel, mcmc, mvtnorm, rstan, rstanarm.

A workshop hosted by the South African Journal of Science aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers with little or no experience in writing and publishing journal articles.