Prof Jan Rijn Zeevaart received his PhD from the Techniese Universiteit Delft (Delft University of Technology) in the Netherlands in 2001. In 2002 he is appointed as head of the Radiochemistry group at South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa). He is a National Research Foundation (NRF) rated researcher since 2009 with a current rating of B2. He is the co-author of ~100 international publications, >150 conference contributions and credited with 6 patents. He is frequently invited as keynote and plenary speaker at international conferences.
Prof Zeevaart leads (as Principle Research Scientist - a position equivalent to Senior Manager) the Radiochemistry department at South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) whom in the past developed the isotope production processes that now reside with NTP Radioisotopes SOC. These commercialisation efforts earns South Africa more than 50 MR per annum in foreign revenue. His research disciplines are radiochemicals & radiopharmaceutical chemistry and he has a keen interest in exploiting these disciplines in designing new radiopharmaceuticals. He also functions as the NTeMBI (Nuclear Technologies in Medicine and Biosciences Initiative) coordinator and was the NuMeRI (Nuclear Medicine Research Infrastructure) champion from 2016-2020 establishing the 3 nodes while the full research infrastructure at Steve Biko Academic Hospital was designed. Both are national initiatives of the South African Department of Science and Innovation and intend to design new radiopharmaceuticals and make radiolabelled versions of potential pharmaceuticals available for imaging of these drug entities. Several infection imaging radiopharmaceuticals now form part of fdr65t5s8t suite of radiotracers available clinically as developed together with Prof Mike Sathekge from the Steve Biko Academic Hospital / University of Pretoria, Nuclear Medicine dept.
Since August 2019 he has been acting as the Divisional Executive for Research and Technology Development at South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) being responsible for all research activities in the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) group. Prof Zeevaart was the recipient of the 2007 South African Chemical Institute’s Raikes Medal and part of the international team awarded the Marie Curie award by the European Association of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging in 2018. In March 2019 he received the Top Intellectual Creator Award from the Department of Science and Technology.
