Prof Chrisjan Cruywagen, a renowned Dairy researcher from the Department of Animal Sciences, Stellenbosch University, recently received two prestigious awards for his ground breaking research on melamine. Cruywagen is heading up the melamine research group at the Department of Animal Sciences and has done studies on melamine as found in Dairy products, Poultry products and Sheep muscle. In July Cruywagen was awarded the 2009 AFMA THECNICAL PERSON OF THE YEAR AWARD by the Animal Feed Manufacturers Association (AFMA) for his service to the industry in terms of feed microscopy and also for his recent ground breaking research on melamine. More recently, in October 2009, Cruywagen was acknowledged by the Western Cape branch of the Agricultural Writers SA as the Western Cape Agriculturist of the year for his exceptional research on melamine. Prof Cruywagen has been involved with melamine since the mysterious white substance was first found in feed at the end of 2006 and which was only much later identified as melamine. Cruywagen and his team of researchers identified pathways for melamine from the feed to animal products, which discerned it from events in China where melamine was added directly to milk and milk powders that were used in the manufacturing of infant formula. Even though melamine is a household name, when the chemical gets into food and is consumed by animals or humans, the effects may be deadly or may cause severe suffering. Cruywagen also showed that melamine can end up in pastures when melamine contaminated fertilizers are applied to soil This, and his findings on how melamine found its way into milk, eggs and meat, was presented as one of only eight abstracts accepted for a special oral session on “late breaking/cutting edge research” at the 2009 Joint Meeting of the American Dairy Science Association, American Society of Animal Science and the Canadian Society of Animal Science that was held in Montreal in July this year.