Dr Sarel Jacobus Brand started his academic career directly after graduating with a Pharmacy (BPharm) degree from North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa. During his post-graduate studies, he performed behavioural neuropsychiatry-based research in rodent models of mood and anxiety disorders. Subsequent to this, he started an ecotocoxicology post-doctoral fellowship at North-West University Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management. Here, his work involved zebrafish behavioural ecotoxicity (mainly heavy metals and nanomaterials) models as well as biomarker-based work in other fish species and bivalves. In parallel, he maintained involvement in neuropsychiatry-based research studying compulsive-like persistence in zebrafish. Currently, he is employed at the University of Pretoria in the Department of Pharmacology. He is currently involved in an analytical project to establish safety levels of pharmacotherapy in breastfeeding mothers and also developing an in vitro neuronal cell model to assess oxidative stress and antioxidant treatment strategies relevant to mood and anxiety as well as neurodegenerative disorders.
