University Of The Western Cape Research Articles

The Place of English Literature in the South African University: Zoë Wicomb’s “A Clearing in the Bush”

This paper considers the place of English Literature as a university discipline in South Africa given the call to decolonise universities in the wake of Rhodes Must Fall. Focussing on historically black institutions (HBIs) and the apartheid government’s minimising of ‘aesthetic education’ (following Spivak’s use of the term) at them, I turn to Zoë Wicomb’s story “A Clearing in the Bush” (1987), which is set at the University of the Western Cape in the 1960s and concerns the attempts of an English literature student to complete an essay on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’urbervilles. Wicomb’s story, I argue, invites us to think about the ambivalent role of English at HBIs and illustrates how literary study can act both as a particularly insidious vehicle for disciplinary power and, potentially, as a means for critiquing such power. Finally, the paper considers how Wicomb’s story remains pertinent today.Keywords: English literature, decolonisation, Zoë Wicomb, Thomas Hardy, Bantu Education, discipline, disciplinary power, aesthetic education, desire, pedagogy, University of the Western Cape

An exploration of fathers’ subjective experiences of parenting a child that presents with dyspraxia

Confronting the realisation that one’s child may have a developmental disability presents a major challenge for any parent. The body of scholarship in this area however, focused mainly on the role that mothers play highlighting a distinct gap within the literature. In an attempt to address this, the study aimed to highlight the experiences of fathers in parenting a child that presents with dyspraxia. The study adopted an Interpretivist framework using a qualitative approach. Consistent with this approach, 14 semi-structured individual interviews were conducted. Fathers across the Cape Metropole area were purposefully recruited and interviewed regarding their experiences in parenting a child with dyspraxia. These interviews were transcribed verbatim and subjected to Clarke and Braun’s version of thematic analysis. Ethics principles as stipulated by the University of the Western Cape were strictly adhered to throughout the research process. The thematic domain of ‘experiences’ revealed father’s expectations; their initial reactions; the periphery of father’s emotions; guilt and devastation. Based on the findings of the study, alternative understandings of fathering need to be developed to enable new and more equal ways of being both fathers and men and mothers and women. This is necessary to challenge the limiting essential notions of what is possible for men and women.

Supporting a student with visual impairment in the intensive care unit.

BackgroundThe Department of Physiotherapy at the University of the Western Cape began accepting students with visual impairments (VIs) into the undergraduate physiotherapy programme in 1996. However, until recently, none had received a clinical rotation in any high care setting.ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to explore the experiences of all stakeholders involved in the process of placing a student with VI into the intensive care unit (ICU).MethodThis case study used interviews with relevant stakeholders to explore their experiences of integrating the ICU placement into the student’s clinical programme. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and then analysed thematically.ResultsThere was a certain amount of anxiety present, especially among clinical staff, before the placement began. Discussions among stakeholders at each stage of the process served to identify potential problems before they arose, and allowed staff to plan solutions in advance. Challenges were found in both the attitudes of staff, and in the clinical environment, some of which were relatively easy to address, while others will require significant investments of resources to resolve.ConclusionOur findings suggest that it may be possible to successfully place students with VI into intensive care settings, and they can enjoy positive learning experiences, given an appropriate context and adequate support. However, care needs to be taken at every stage of the process to ensure that supporting structures are in place prior to, and during, the placement.Clinical implicationsAll stakeholders, including the students and the relevant clinical and academic staff, need to be actively involved in the process of planning for the clinical placement.

A 20-year evaluation of PLAAS research outputs: Impact on the scholarly domain and in social media

Patterns and methods of scholarly communication have changed with the growth in information technology, particularly the Internet and the social web. The changes have necessitated a broader definition of scholarly communication and the role of social media in the research process. We sought to record the body of work that the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), a research institute at the University of the Western Cape, produced over a 20-year period (1995–2015) – the first two decades of its existence – and to measure its visibility and impact using bibliometrics and altmetrics. A survey was also carried out to investigate to what extent PLAAS researchers knew and used social media in their research practice. Scopus and Google Scholar were used as citation indices and Altmetric.com provided Altmetric scores – a measure of impact through social and mainstream media. The full list of PLAAS outputs showed a composition of 54% grey literature and 46% journal articles and monographs. Given that over half of PLAAS research outputs were in the form of grey literature, and therefore not indexed in traditional bibliometric databases, we suggest that alternative metrics be used in conjunction with bibliometrics, to measure the impact of a body of work on the scholarly domain. Although the bibliometrics in this study were a useful quantitative indicator of the impact of PLAAS research, this study was inconclusive with regard to determining the impact of the research output via altmetrics, partly because not any of the grey literature, nor any author from PLAAS, had a unique identifier, thus making it difficult to track and find quantitative indicators. Nonetheless, the potential benefit for PLAAS of using altmetrics was demonstrated in selected case studies of the output of three PLAAS researchers active on social media platforms.
 Significance:
 
 This study demonstrates that the use of bibliometric and altmetric analyses can yield a rich picture of research output and significance, providing insight into the patterns of scholarly communication of research and policy institutions.
 The application of the research design in other research units and departments could generate results that are useful to research management within those institutions.

The ecosystem of e-learning model for higher education

We present the ecosystem of e-learning (EeL) model, which can be applied to any higher education context, and which takes full account of all inhabitants and their interrelationships, not only the components, of the e-learning food chain. Specifically, this model was applied to our context within the University of the Western Cape, highlighting the role of the academic developer within the model. A key argument advanced in this paper is that academic developers should work to reduce complexities associated with emerging e-tools. The EeL model is used to emphasise the role of academic developers as mediators between components and relationships.
 Significance:
 
 By the application of the EeL model, it is demonstrated that the use of e-tools and their alignment with pedagogies within any context must be sensitive to the entire ecosystem, with the recognition that this is simultaneously a top-down and a bottom-up process.
 The student must be the core focus in the adoption of emerging technologies and the learning process, but simultaneously the student can only be in focus when they are placed within their broader ecosystem – including the societal level.
 Our findings add to the debate on physics education specifically, and more broadly by providing new ways of conceptualising an e-learning ecosystem.
 It is advocated that an academic developer-mediator should step in to mediate between academics, tutors and emerging e-tools, through a structured developmental process for learning and teaching.
 The EeL model can afford an insight into the processes involved when incorporating a learning management system (and emerging e-tools) into learning and teaching in higher education institutions.

The colourful chemistry of South African latrunculid sponges

Marine sponges – in common with many other sessile marine invertebrates seemingly devoid of obvious physical forms of defence against predators, e.g. spines or shells – are the sources of a diverse array of organic chemical compounds known as marine natural products or secondary metabolites. Recent research has indicated that the production of natural products via cellular secondary metabolic pathways in some sponge species may not occur within the sponge cells themselves, but rather in microbial endosymbionts which inhabit the surface and interstitial spaces within the sponge tissue. Regardless of their biosynthetic origin, the bioactivity, e.g. toxicity, of many of these marine natural products may be utilised by sponges as chemical feeding deterrents to discourage predation or to provide a chemical anti-fouling competitive edge in the intense competition for living space amongst filter-feeders on space-limited benthic reefs. Paradoxically, a small number of sponge natural products have serendipitously shown potential as new pharmaceuticals, e.g. novel anti-cancer drugs. Marine biodiscovery (or bioprospecting) is the search for new pharmaceuticals from marine organisms. Exploration of the taxonomy, natural products chemistry and biomedicinal potential of the rich diversity of South African latrunculid sponges (family Latrunculiidae), at Rhodes University, the South African Department of Environmental Affairs and the University of the Western Cape has continued unabated for over a quarter of a century as part of a collaborative marine biodiscovery programme. A short review of this multidisciplinary latrunculid sponge research is presented here.

The Space of the University: Time, and Time Again

AbstractScholarly analyses of the South African hashtag campus movements of 2015–2016, #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall, have evaluated them in terms of their success in bringing about political change in a linear causal fashion. Through a reading of Thando Mgqolozana’s novel, Unimportance (2014), the history of the University of the Western Cape, as well as scholarly commentary on #RMF and #FMF, this article argues that an attention to the cyclicality of time as it unfolds within the space of the university is crucial for properly understanding the events of 2015–2016.

Preceptor reflections on the Community Health clinical rotation for fourth year pharmacy students at the University of the Western Cape

Preceptor reflections on the Community Health clinical rotation for fourth year pharmacy students at the University of the Western Cape

Be a Little Careful: Women, Violence, and Performance in India

In this article Swati Arora analyzes a contemporary Indian feminist performance, Thoda Dhyaan Se (A Little Carefully, 2013), by framing it in the spatial ecosystem of the city of Delhi and exploring its engagement with feminist discourse and the national imaginary of India. It highlights the workings of the cultural economy of the city, which is defined by its spatial contours as well as the privileges of caste, class, sexuality, and ethnicity, and at the same time explores the heterogeneous nature of the country's feminist movement through an intersectional perspective. Swati Arora argues that the concerns raised by Thoda Dhyaan Se are limited to urban, middle-class, and upper-caste women and overlook the oppressive realities of women from non-urban, lower-class, and lower-caste backgrounds. With conversations around gender focused through campaigns like #MeToo and #TImesUp, it is important to contextualize the voices that are articulated and those that are excluded. Swati Arora is an Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape. Her work exists at the intersections of theatre and performance, feminist theory, critical urban studies, post/de-colonial theory, and visual cultures. She completed her PhD at the University of Exeter and is a coconvenor of the International Federation of Theatre Research.

How to Develop IoT Cloud e-Health Systems Based on FIWARE: A Lesson Learnt

Nowadays, the penetration of sensors and actuators in different application fields is revolutionizing all aspects of our daily life. One of the major sectors that is taking advantage of such cutting-edge cheap smart devices is healthcare. In this context, Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) at home represents a tempting opportunity for hospitals to reduce clinical costs and to improve the quality of life of both patients and their families. It allows patients to be monitored remotely by means networks of Internet of Things (IoT) medical devices equipped with sensors and actuators that collect healthcare data from patients and send them to a Cloud-based Hospital Information System (HIS) for processing. Up to now, many different proprietary software systems have been developed as stand-along expensive solutions, presenting interoperability, extensibility, and scalability issues. In recent years, the European Commission (EC) has promoted the wide adoption of FIWARE technology, launching 16 Industrial Accelerators focusing on different application fields. One of these, i.e., FICHe, is specialized in healthcare, providing the guidelines on how to develop eHealth systems. This paper focuses on how to compose new cutting-edge IoT and Cloud-based Cyber Physical Health Sytem (CPHS) services and applications interconnected with remote medical sensors and actuators using FIWARE technology in the context envisioned by FICHe. In particular, we discuss the design and development of an RPM system implemented through the collaboration between the Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico (IRCCS) “Bonino Pulejo” (i.e., a clinical and research healthcare centre specialized in the treatment of neuro lesions), University of Messina, IBM Research, Telefónica, and the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. The description of our best practice provides a model and guidelines for the development of lightweight and low cost RPM services for rural and isolated areas, with the expectation of expanding healthcare to the developing world and in general allows us to outline how to deal with the real adoption of the FIWARE technology in an e-health project.

Multilingual and multimodal mediation in one university module: The people and processes involved

At the core of using languages other than English in higher education in South Africa lies the processes of translation/mediation and the mediators themselves. Within the framework of the descriptive theory of translation, this paper offers a critical consideration of the people and processes at the heart of one such project at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa: the mediators who must either translate lecture material or lend their voices to the aural versions of such materials. The paper shows the processes involved in translating part of a lecture in English into varieties of Afrikaans and isiXhosa, and making these available in both reading and listening format. In addition, the paper examines interview responses of five of the mediators involved in the project, as well as some student responses to the material. Apart from showing the interdependence between the different stages of mediation in this project, we concluded that discipline-specific mediation is best done by subject specialists themselves. The findings also showed that most students felt that the informal, localised translations in the oral format offered the greatest epistemological access to the course content.

A weighted bootstrap approach to logistic regression modelling in identifying risk behaviours associated with sexual activity

ABSTRACTThe latest population estimates released by Statistics South Africa indicate that 25.03% of all deaths in 2017 in South Africa were AIDS-related. Along with these results, it is also reported that 7.06% of the population were living with HIV, with the HIV-prevalence among youth (aged 15–24) at 4.64% for 2017 (STATSSA. (2018). Retrieved from Statistics South Africa: http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0302/P03022017.pdf). The data used in the study contained information related to the risk-taking behaviours associated with the sexual activity of entering first-year students at the University of the Western Cape. In this study, a logistic regression modelling procedure was carried out on those students that were determined to be sexually active, therefore, in the modelling procedure significant risk behaviours of sexually active first-year students could be identified. Of the 14 variables included in the modelling procedure, six were found to be significantly associated with sexually active students. The significant variables included; the age and race of the student, whether the student had ever taken an HIV test, the importance of religion in influencing the sexual behaviour of the student, whether the student consumed alcohol and lastly whether the student smoked. This study further investigated the impact of introducing sample weighting, bootstrap sampling as well as variable selection methods into the logistic regression modelling procedure. It is shown that incorporating these techniques into the modelling procedure produces logistic regression models that are more accurate and have an increased predictive capability. The bootstrapping procedure is shown to produce logistic regression models that are more accurate than those produced without a bootstrap procedure. A comparison between 200, 500 and 1000 bootstrap samples is also incorporated into the modelling procedure with the models produced from 200 bootstrap samples shown to be just as accurate those produced from 500 or 1000 bootstrap samples. Of the five variable selection methods used, it is shown that the Newton–Raphson and Fisher methods are unreliable in producing logistic regression models. The forward, backward and stepwise variable selection methods are shown to produce very similar results.

Approaches to Teaching Coetzee's Disgrace and Other Works ed. by Laura Wright, Jane Poyner, and Elleke Boehmer, and: Teaching Human Rights in Literary and Cultural Studies ed. by Alexandra Schultheis Moore and Elisabeth Swanson Goldberg

Reviewed by: Approaches to Teaching Coetzee's Disgrace and Other Works ed. by Laura Wright, Jane Poyner, and Elleke Boehmer, and: Teaching Human Rights in Literary and Cultural Studies ed. by Alexandra Schultheis Moore and Elisabeth Swanson Goldberg Kelly Hewson (bio) Laura Wright, Jane Poyner, and Elleke Boehmer, editors. Approaches to Teaching Coetzee's Disgrace and Other Works. MLA, 2014. Approaches to Teaching World Literature. Pp. 227. US $24. Alexandra Schultheis Moore and Elisabeth Swanson Goldberg, editors. Teaching Human Rights in Literary and Cultural Studies. MLA, 2015. Options for Teaching. Pp. 362. US $29. Laura Wright, Jane Poyner, and Elleke Boehmer's Approaches to Teaching Coetzee's Disgrace and Other Works includes contributions that were selected based on a global questionnaire sent to university teachers; twenty-seven responded and twelve are included in the collection. As Poyner indicates in the volume's first section, "Materials," the bulk of the contributors are from South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States (3). Readers are not privy to how and where the questionnaire was distributed, for how long a period it was available, or the questions it posed, and some of us may be left wondering why a volume published under the banner of the Modern Language Association's "Approaches to Teaching World Literature" series did not try harder to extend its reach. However, the two-part collection—"Materials," in which Poyner provides both novice and seasoned teachers of J. M. Coetzee's writing plenty to work with, and "Approaches," which discusses teaching methods—is replete with rigorous, thought-provoking pedagogical strategies rehearsed in a range of institutional and classroom settings. From secondary schools to public and private universities, from large survey classes to graduate seminars, in courses on literature, theory, existentialism, resistance, philosophy, general education, and first-year composition, inspiring educators and their students wrestle with the complexities and nuances of Coetzee's writing. The essays that bracket the collection introduce and reinforce the themes throughout. Rita Barnard's "Why Not to Teach Coetzee" smartly explicates the numerous teacher/teaching vignettes imbued with eros in Coetzee's work and encourages readers to consider "an erotics of pedagogy" when encountering his texts (40). The concluding piece, Patrick Hayes' "Coetzee and Close Reading," asserts students' pleasures in the aesthetic experiences of reading while expertly marshalling many of Coetzee's texts to reveal how they reflect contemporary literary debates and gesture beyond stalemates. Between the two are captivating essays from teachers in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Warwick, Amherst, Waverly, Petersburg, Cullowhee, [End Page 245] Singapore, Stockholm, and Jerusalem that astutely demonstrate the emergent, residual, and/or dominant knowledges that readers' encounters with Disgrace elicit. Of particular interest to those approaching South Africa from afar are David Attwell's essay describing the experience of teaching Coetzee at the University of the Western Cape in the 1980s and the curricular choices made at the University of Witswatersrand in tandem with the nation's transition in the 2000s; Carrol Clarkson's piece on the University of Cape Town students' responses to Disgrace and its film adaptation, both partly set on campus; and Gerald Gaylard's reading of the novel as an impediment to closure in the "new" South Africa. Stephen Clingman outlines the novel's reception history and how his defense of and deeply felt approach to Disgrace make their way into his Massachusetts seminar class, while Kay Heath reveals her preparations for and treatments of the novel in an African postcolonialism class at a historically black university in West Virginia. The volume covers Coetzee's other works from Dusklands through to his "Australian-period" writing, as Boehmer categorizes it (117). Michael Bell uses these works to introduce students to and engage them with arguments about the value of imaginative literatures; Martina Ghosh-Schellhorn to expand students' "horizon[s] of expectation" as readers; Boehmer to consider what approaching Coetzee as a transnational writer offers; Wright to inform students in America about America; Wendy Woodward to reveal the uncomfortable lessons proffered by Elizabeth Costello; Robert Spencer to think through the politics and ethics of representations; Emily S. Davis to facilitate understandings of deconstruction; and Shannon Payne to analyse Coetzee's texts' intricate rhetorical situations. Numerous contributors underscore the...

Working the ‘in-between-spaces’ for transformation within the academy

This paper considers the importance of ‘in-between spaces’ within the academy for challenging dominant institutional culture and hegemonic power relations towards a ‘de-colonised’ university. It questions ‘mainstreaming’ of transformational initiatives, as this can bring about regulation, rather than the turbulence that is often what is needed for substantive change to occur. I draw on a case study of the work of the Division for Lifelong Learning (DLL) at University of the Western Cape and in particular two examples of its marginal activities which were hosted regularly over a 10 year period. These are: the Vice-Chancellor’s Annual Julius Nyerere Lecture on Lifelong Learning and the cross-campus Annual Women’s Breakfast . I use documentary evidence and insider knowledge to reflect critically on the relevance of the spaces that were created for enacting such alternative institutional practices. I employ ‘knowledge democracy’ as a lens to bring the margins to the centre of the analysis. The argument is made that the work in the ‘in-between-spaces’ is a critical part of ‘decolonising education’ through disruptive, political, pedagogical, and organisational transformation. Keywords: decolonising education; feminist popular education; ‘in-between’ pedagogical spaces; knowledge democracy; lifelong learning; transformation

The re-design of a fourth year Bachelor of Education programme using the Constructive Alignment Approach

The focus of this article is on the re-design of a fourth year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) programme at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Due to the changes in teacher qualifications, as outlined in the 2015 Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualification (MRTEQ) policy document, Higher Education Institutions were required to adapt their Initial Teaching Education (ITE) programmes to meet the requirements of the new policy document. This article describes the use of a backward mapping approach, in conjunction with the application of a constructive alignment framework, used by the education faculty at UWC to adjust the teaching and learning in the B.Ed programme to address the outcomes and standards required by the MRTEQ policy document. Given the type of student enrolled at UWC, the article provides a discussion on the challenges involved in developing a programme for students who might not have been adequately prepared for their tertiary studies due to the disadvantaged school contexts they come from. The article thus provides a reflective discussion on the challenges involved in the re-design process that used the pre-service teacher competencies expected at the end of the B.Ed programme at UWC, to develop the teaching and learning programme and assessment tasks for the fourth year B.Ed course.Received: 02 August 2018Accepted: 31 October 2018Published online: 29 November 2018

Message of Support from Mrs GNM Pandor, Minister of Higher Education and Training

Message of Support from Mrs GNM Pandor,Minister of Higher Education and Training
 Internationally there is a scarcity of peer-reviewed academic publications that are specifically intended to promote and disseminate scholarly research into post-school TVET and Adult and Continuing Education and Training.
 The first edition of the Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training and its focus on the African continent and the global South is thus timely and most welcome.
 The enormous importance of the TVET, Adult and Continuing Education sector to the social and economic wellbeing of our people is not disputed. However, there has been an absence of a credible and quality publication to promote scholarly debate in the field. I am hopeful that this Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training will provide such a platform for the theoretical and conceptual understanding of this sector. I hope also that the Journal will provide a platform for a rigorous and sound analysis of the implementation of the analyses of the scholars that will be published in the Journal.
 I welcome the first edition of the Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training and look forward to the interdisciplinary and globally comparative publications that will assist policymakers, practitioners, researchers and scholars to contribute to and enhance the understanding of this important sector.
 Congratulations to the Institute for Post-School Studies at the University of the Western Cape and your partners on this milestone.
 I wish you, your contributors and your readers every success in this first edition and continued strength in the years ahead.
 Mrs GNM Pandor MPMinister of Higher Education and Training

Knowledge and Skills Competencies for Humanities Librarians Supporting Postgraduate Students

AbstractThis paper reports on an aspect of a 2016 masters study which addresses the research question: what knowledge and skills do humanities librarians require to effectively provide support to postgraduate students in the digital age? The study adopted a qualitative approach using a multiple case study design, within a constructivist paradigm, to respond to the research question, with core competency theory used to provide theoretical support. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with purposively sampled librarians and postgraduate students from Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape, all of which are situated in the Western Cape of South Africa. A significant finding of the study is that a mixture of discipline-specific knowledge and skills, generic skills and personal attributes are required by humanities librarians to effectively support postgraduate students, especially in the current digital age. The study presents a knowledge and skills framework that could be used to ascertain humanities librarians’ current knowledge and skills as well as establish areas for further knowledge and skills acquisition.

Space/place matters

This special issue of Multilingual Margins on the theme of “Space/place matters” has its origin in a doctoral summer school organised in December 2016 by the Department of Linguistics and the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research at the University of the Western Cape as part of a collaboration with the University of Oslo and three other South African universities – Stellenbosch University, University of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand – and financed by Research Council of Norway’s programme International Partnerships for Excellent Education, Research and Innovation (INTPART). Doctoral students based in Norway and South Africa attended the summer school, presented their research projects, and were encouraged to submit an article to Multilingual Margins. This was with a view to training budding scholars to deal with the peer-review process of academic publishing. This special issue is the material outcome of this process and includes three articles that have a common interest in unpicking the complex relationship between language and space/place.

The Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa

There is an urgency in theorising howdiversity is negotiated, communicated,and disputed as a matter of everydayordinariness that is compounded by theclear linkages between diversity, transformation,voice, agency, poverty andhealth. The way in which difference iscategorised, semiotised and reconfiguredin multiple languages across quotidianencounters and in public and media forumsis a central dynamic in how povertyand disadvantage are distributed and reproducedacross social and racial categorisations.In the South African context,finding ways of productively harnessingdiversity in the building of a better societymust be a priority.

Vascular targeted nanotherapeutic approach for obesity treatment.

Obesity is a global epidemic that poses a serious health concern due to it being a risk factor for life-threatening chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases. Pharmacotherapy remains the mainstay for the management of obesity; however, its usefulness is limited due to poor drug efficacy, non-specificity and toxic side effects. Therefore, novel approaches that could provide insights into obesity and obesity-associated diseases as well as development of novel anti-obesity treatment modalities or improvement on the existing drugs are necessary. While the ideal treatment of obesity should involve early intervention in susceptible individuals, targeted nanotherapy potentially provides a fresh perspective that might be better than the current conventional therapies. Independent studies have shown improved drug efficacy by using prohibitin (PHB)-targeted therapy in obese rodents and non-human primates, thus providing a proof of concept that targeted nanotherapy can be a feasible treatment for obesity. This review presents a brief global survey of obesity, its impact on human health, its current treatment and their limitations, and the role of angiogenesis and PHB in the development of obesity. Finally, the role and potential use of nanotechnology coupled with targeted drug delivery in the treatment of obesity are discussed.