Quin Wills received the British Chevening Scholarship in 2005 and, as a brilliant scholar, subsequently received a Commonwealth Scholarship for a Doctoral thesis at Oxford the following year.

Having already gained degrees in medicine, human genetics, applied mathematics and computational biology, Quin decided to combine his areas of expertise when embarking upon his doctoral research.

He is currently working with the Mathematical Genetics and Bioinformatics group at the University of Oxford, mainly focusing on model type 2 diabetes, focusing on gene, protein and metabolic materials. In his doctoral research he is using data derived from some of the largest complex disease studies done anywhere in the world to date.

Quin also co-funded a DTI-funded biotechnology company which uses gene expression models developed from human cell cultures as alternatives to animal toxicity testing, the impact of which could hugely decrease the cost of drug development.

Quin is grateful for the opportunities afforded to him by the Chevening and Commonwealth scholarships, and, upon his return to South Africa, he hopes to be part of a world-class centre of excellence in the study of complex biomedicine, to participate in the South African government’s current strategy of infusing money into the biotechnology sector and to improve international collaboration at an industrial and academic level.

Quin Wills has a M.B.B.Ch. - Medicine and Surgery (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa), ana a B.Sc. Honours - Human Genetics (University of the Witwatersrand / South African Institute for Medical Research, South Africa)

‘Earlier interests stemmed primarily from my molecular dissertation work at the South African Institute for Medical Research,’ says Wills, ‘exploring target genetic polymorphisms postulated to be quantitative trait loci for alcoholic behaviour and risk factors for foetal alcohol syndrome. More recently, I completed research at the Great Ormond Street Hospital Camelia Botnar Laboratories as part of an Institute of Child Health (University College London) project into the use of bacterial viruses to treat surgical infections.’

When it comes to relaxing, Wills loves adventure sports – particularly microlight flying – and using his studies to help others are top of the list. He says: ‘I love playing the odd bit of music, photography, poetry, travel and cooking. Basic rights issues are central to my core life philosophies and I am passionate about using the power of good science to facilitate this. As an advocate of the African Renaissance I believe that the only sustainable hope for Africa lies with education and science.

When asked about his future plans, Wills has big ambitions. ‘Rule the world - no less. Before that I’m going to spend a year at “the other place” doing a Masters in Maths and hope eventually to tackle a PhD.’

In the meantime, Wills has started SimuGen, a company that uses gene profiling kits to predict the toxicity of substances and so can be used asreplacements to animal testing.