Mr. Fred Bwayo Masika is a Ugandan national, an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Muni University and a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Plant Science Microbiology and Biotechnology, College of Natural Sciences, Makerere University. He has expertise in the subject areas of Plant Pathology and Genetics. He received his MSc Botany [Genetics and Molecular Biology] in 2016 and a BSc [Botany and zoology] in 2012 both from Makerere University, and a Diploma in secondary education [Biology/ chemistry] in 2005 from Kyambogo University, Uganda. Besides his academic/ scientific career, he is a farmer and loves sport.
His research focuses on biotic stress in plants particularly viruses infecting cucurbits in Uganda. This is an area with limited investigation but his preliminary findings have shown presence of these viruses using non-generic methods. These crops may be acting as reservoirs/ alternative hosts of key crops in the region. His focus now is to use generic methods like Next-generation and Sanger sequencing to determine the biological and molecular diversity of viruses infecting Cucurbits and identify varieties which are resistant to some of the identified viruses. He has also carried out some research in genomic and genetic differentiation of African eggplant (Solanum aethiopicum Gilo) and Forrest BitterBerry (Solanum anguivi) and insect pests of crops like maize and rice.
He has received training in bioinformatics, molecular biology and biotechnology from reputable institutions like the Biosciences eastern and central Africa –International livestock research institute (BecA-ILRI), International center for insect physiology and ecology (ICIPE), and the Nelson Mandela institute of Science and technology (NM-IST). He also attended international conferences like the 13th Solgenomics conference which was held at the University of California, Davis in the USA in 2016.
Mr. Masika also received an International Foundation for Science (IFS) research grant which has facilitated part of his Ph.D. research although a lot is still left to be done. Masika is thankful to the Regional Universities Forum for Development in Agriculture (RUFORUM) for tuition support as a GTA without which it would have not been possible to even begin the Ph.D.
