Marli Dercksen

Doctor Marli Dercksen is the chief medical scientist and consultant at the Potchefstroom Laboratory for Inborn Errors of Metabolism (PLIEM) situated at the Centre of Human Metabolomics, North West University, South Africa (SA). Her contributions to IEM diagnostics in South Africa, stretch over a 16 year period and includes the establisment of valuable international collaboration with experts in this field. Her main focus is to facilitate the diagnosis and monitoring of patients with rare metabolic disorders through consultation with health practitioners. Her contributions also include IEM education and creating awareness in rare disorders unique to the SA population. Her current focus is on LSDs, CDGs and peroxisomal disorders. She was involved in the establishment of the first dedicated LSD diagnostic platform in SA as well as the set-up of a much needed IEM biobank located in SA to facilitate prevalence studies and determine disease and therapeutic outcome in African cohorts. She was recently nominated as member of the Health practitioner’s council of South Africa (HPCSA) medical scientist committee in the discipline of clinical biochemistry and was tasked with setting up a specialised training curriculum for scientists in biochemical genetics. The main goal of this initiative is capacity building in laboratory diagnostics for rare inborn errors of metabolism on metabolite and enzymatic level.