In 2004, Novel Chegou left his home country, Cameroon, in search of a better life in South Africa. With high hopes and not much money, he sold African crafts – beads, masks, and carved stones – next to the village green in Stellenbosch to save for his studies at the town’s university.
Today, Chegou (44) is a full professor in Molecular Biology and Human Genetics at Stellenbosch University’s Department of Biomedical Sciences. He heads a tuberculosis (TB) biomarker research laboratory and…