Feature THE NEXT CHAPTER FOR AFRICAN GENOMICS Nigeria is poised to become a hub for genetics research, but a few stubborn challenges block the way. By Amy Maxmen 350 | Nature | Vol 578 | 20 February 2020 ©2020 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. ©2020 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. n the affluent, beach-side neighbour- meaning that dangerous pathogens could hoods of Lagos, finance and technology evade detection until an outbreak is too big entrepreneurs mingle with investors at to contain easily. art openings and chic restaurants. Now But Nigeria’s genetics revolution could just biotech is entering the scene. Thirty- as soon sputter as soar. Although the coun- four-year-old Abasi Ene-Obong has try is Africa’s largest economy, its research been traversing the globe for the past budget languishes at 0.2% of gross domestic six months, trying to draw investors and product (GDP). Biologists therefore need to Icollaborators into a venture called 54Gene. rely on private investment or on funding from Named to reflect the 54 countries in Africa, outside Africa. This threatens continuity: one the genetics company aims to build the con- of the largest US grants to Nigerian geneticists, tinent’s largest biobank, with backing from through a project known as H3Africa, is set to Silicon Valley venture firms such as Y Com- expire in two years. There are other challenges. binator and Fifty Years. The first step in that Human research in Africa requires copious effort is a study, launched earlier this month, communication and unique ethical consid- to sequence and analyse the genomes of eration given the vast economic disparities 100,000 Nigerians. and history of exploitation on the continent. At a trendy African fusion restaurant, And a lack of reliable electricity in Nigeria hob- Ene-Obong is explaining how the company bles research that relies on sub-zero freezers, can bring precision medicine to Nigeria, and sensitive equipment and computing power. generate a profit at the same time. He talks Yet with a hustle that Nigerians are famous about some new investors and partners that for, scientists are pushing ahead. Ene-Obong he’s not able to name publicly, then pulls out hopes to pursue research through partner- his phone to show pictures of a property he just ships with pharmaceutical companies, and purchased to expand the company’s lab space. other geneticists are competing for interna- “My big-picture vision is that we can be a tional grants and collaborations, or looking reason that new drugs are discovered,” Ene- to charge for biotech services that are usually Obong says. “I don’t want science for the provided by labs outside Africa. Last Novem- sake of science, I want to do science to solve ber, Nnaemeka Ndodo, chief molecular bioen- problems.” gineer at the National Reference Laboratory, It’s too soon to say whether he will succeed. launched the Nigerian Society of Human But his ambitions would have been unthink- Genetics in the hope of bringing scientists able a decade ago, when most universities together. “When I look at the horizon it looks and hospitals in Nigeria lacked even the most great — but in Nigeria you can never be sure,” basic tools for modern genetics research. Ene- he says. Obong, the chief executive of 54Gene, is riding a wave of interest and investment in African Building the foundation genomics that is coursing through Nigeria. In Around 15 years ago, Nigerian geneticist a rural town in the western part of the country, Charles Rotimi was feeling dismayed. He was a microbiologist is constructing a US$3.9-mil- enjoying academic success, but would have lion genomics centre. And in the capital city of preferred to do so in his home country. He had Abuja, researchers are revamping the National left Africa to do cutting-edge research, and he Reference Laboratory to analyse DNA from was not alone. 200,000 blood samples stored in their new Many Nigerian academics move abroad. biobank. Studying everything from diabetes According to the Migration Policy Institute to cholera, these endeavours are designed to in Washington DC, 29% of Nigerians aged 25 build the country’s capabilities so that genet- or older in the United States hold a master’s ics results from Africa — the publications, pat- or a doctoral degree, compared with 11% of ents, jobs and any resulting therapies — flow the general US population. back to the continent. After Rotimi joined the US National Insti- The rest of the world is interested, too. tutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, in Africa contains much more genetic diversity 2008, he hatched a plan with director Francis than any other continent because humans Collins to drive genetics research in Africa. originated there. This diversity can provide Rotimi wasn’t interested in one-off grants, insights into human evolution and common but rather in building a foundation on which diseases. Yet fewer than 2% of the genomes science could thrive. “The major thing to me that have been analysed come from Africans. was to create jobs so that people could do the A dearth of molecular-biology research on the work locally,” he says. In 2010, the NIH and continent also means that people of African Wellcome, a biomedical charity in London, descent might not benefit from drugs tai- announced the H3Africa, or Human Heredity lored to unique genetic variations. Infec- and Health in Africa, project. It’s become a tious-disease surveillance also falls short, $150-million, 10-year initiative that supports institutes in 12 African countries. The proof of 54Gene aims to create Africa’s largest biobank. its success will be not in the number of papers published, but rather in the number of African 54GENE Nature | Vol 578 | 20 February 2020 | 351 ©2020 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. ©2020 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. Feature cupboard, a technician labels tubes beside a freezer. Coker Motunrayo, a doctoral student studying memory loss after strokes, sits on the counter-top because there’s not enough space for a chair. She insists that the H3Africa project is a success, even though their genetics work has just started. “Compare this to where we were five years ago, and you’d be stunned,” she says. On the cusp Perhaps the most advanced genomics facility in West Africa right now is located in Ede in southwestern Nigeria. At Redeemer’s Univer- sity, a private institution founded by a Nigerian megachurch, microbiologist Christian Happi is building an empire. Construction teams are busy creating a $3.9-million home for the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases. Happi strides across a veranda, and into a series of rooms that will become a high-level biosafety laboratory suitable for working on Ebola and other dangerous pathogens. Another small room nearby will house a NovaSeq 6000 machine made by Illumina in San Diego, Cali- 54GENE 54Gene chief executive Abasi Ene-Obong is preparing to make Nigeria a genetics powerhouse. fornia, a multimillion-dollar piece of equip- ment that can sequence an entire human investigators able to charge ahead after the Discovering the genetic underpinnings of genome in less than 12 hours. It’s the first of grant ends in 2022. stroke is also complicated by the fact that it, that model on the continent, says Happi, and For that to happen, H3Africa researchers like many non-communicable disorders, is it positions his centre, and Africa, “to become a realized they needed to revise research regu- caused by a blend of biological and environ- player in the field of precision medicine”. Then lations and procedures for gaining the public’s mental factors. Owolabi flips through a blue he announces that Herman Miller furniture is trust. So rather than just collecting blood and booklet of questions answered by 9,000 par- on the way. If it’s good enough for his collabora- leaving — the approach disparagingly referred ticipants so far. It asks about everything from tors at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in to as helicopter research — many investigators family medical history to level of education. Cambridge, Massachusetts, he adds, it is good on the team have devoted time to adapting Insights are buried in the answers, even with- enough for his team. studies for the African context. out DNA data: the team found, for instance, Happi plans to move his lab into the facility For example, when Mayowa Owolabi, a that young Nigerians and Ghanaians who eat in a few months. But the team is already doing neurologist at the University of Ibadan, Nige- green leafy vegetables every day have fewer advanced work on emerging outbreaks. At a ria, was recruiting healthy controls for his strokes1. And that’s just the beginning. “You small desk, one of Happi’s graduate students, H3Africa study on the genetics of stroke, his see the amount of data we have accrued,” he Judith Oguzie, stares at an interactive pie chart team discovered that many people had alarm- says. “I don’t think we have used even 3% of it, on her laptop. The chart displays all of the ingly high blood pressure and didn’t know it. so we need to get more funding to keep the genetic sequences recovered from a blood Nigeria has one of the world’s highest stroke work going.” sample shipped to the lab from a hospital as rates, and Owolabi realized that communities Owolabi’s team is now applying for new part of a countrywide effort to learn which needed medical information and basic care grants from the NIH, Wellcome and other inter- microbes are infecting people with fevers.