DOCSLIB.ORG

Nigeria Is Poised to Become a Hub for Genetics Research, but a Few Stubborn Challenges Block the Way

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Nigeria Is Poised to Become a Hub for Genetics Research, but a Few Stubborn Challenges Block the Way 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.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • International Symposium of Human Genetics
    ichg2022.com THE INTERNATIONAL The 14th International Congress of Human FEDERATION OF HUMAN Genetics was postponed GENETICS SOCIETIES by almost a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, PRESENTS: and the LOC has decided to host a Symposium in 2021 as a taster of what will be expected at the International Congress in 2022. We are bringing together Symposium on exceptional speakers for two sessions on topics that are highly relevant to Human Genetics human geneticists and these discussions will be picked up again at the 9 & 10 March 2021 main meeting in 2022. DAY 1: The shaping of modern Tue 9 March 2021 3pm - 5pm human genomes: migration, admixture & Wed 10 March 2021 9am - 11 am ancient genomic Times are listed in SAST introgression DAY 2: Infectious diseases and Virtual Conference Platform our genome Programme: T U E S D A Y , 9 M A R C H 2 0 2 1 1 5 : 0 0 - 1 7 : 0 0 S A S T ( G M T + 2 ) The shaping of modern human genomes: migration, admixture and ancient genomic introgression - Chaired by Charles Rotimi & Michele Ramsay Since the emergence of modern man in Africa between 400,000 and 600,000 years ago, evolutionary forces have been shaping the human genome. Studies on the genomes of people living today and some who died thousands of years ago provide clues to our past and we begin to unravel a story of migration, admixture and adaptation. In this session we start with African population genomics, then adaptive signatures and introgression form extinct hominids to the peopling of Asia.
    [Show full text]
  • Global Health, Epidemiology and Genomics Call for Papers
    Global Health, Epidemiology and Genomics Call for Papers - H3Africa and Genomics in Africa Guest Editors: Charles Rotimi, Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health, USA Michèle Ramsay, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Christian Happi, Redeemer’s University, Nigeria Jantina de Vries, University of Cape Town, South Africa Despite the global upsurge in genomic studies, populations from Africa remain understudied and poorly represented in health research. Recent large genomic studies have highlighted the considerable genetic diversity across the continent and the need for studying region specific ethnolinguistic groups to gain a better understanding of genomic and environmental influences in susceptibility to disease. The Human Heredity and Health in Africa Consortium (H3Africa) supports research on infectious and non-communicable diseases to enhance our knowledge and understanding of health on the continent and provide valuable region-specific base-line data to build upon. If Africans are to benefit from precision medicine it is imperative that research is done and interpreted in an appropriate local context. This special collection of articles in Global Health, Epidemiology and Genomics (GHEG) on H3Africa and Genomics in Africa is a unique opportunity to bring together a collection of original research, perspectives, commentaries, brief reports, protocols, research resources and blog articles to highlight the importance of genomic research in African populations as well as ethical considerations, good governance and
    [Show full text]
  • Genomic Epidemiology in Africa
    Genomic epidemiology in Africa Manjinder Sandhu [email protected] Genetic Epidemiology Group International Health Research Group Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Department of Public Health and Primary Care What is the African Genome Variation Project? • Study of 16 ethno-linguistic groups across SSA from populations relevant to medical genomics • 100 individuals with dense (2.5M) genotype data in each • One of the largest diversity panel from Africa so far • Aim: to study genetic variation in Africa to inform large scale studies in African genomics Population structure in SSA 1 Population structure in SSA 3 Evidence for Eurasian and KhoeSan admixture YRI CEU Population structure in SSA 2 Confirming Eurasian and KhoeSan admixture pop A pop B pop C f3,C;A,B Z score pop Apop B pop C f3,C;A,B Z score CEU YRI Zulu 0.00543 33.528 YRI Juhoansi Zulu -0.00705 -44.604 CEU YRI Fula -0.01115 -59.361 YRI Juhoansi Sotho -0.00984 -64.773 CEU YRI Jola 0.005366 31.897 YRI Juhoansi Fula 0.005064 38.379 CEU YRI Mandinka -4.5E-05 -0.338 YRI Juhoansi Jola 0.007087 51.022 CEU YRI Wolof -0.00079 -5.376 YRI Juhoansi Mandinka 0.003206 29.069 CEU YRI Baganda -0.00316 -23.709 YRI Juhoansi Wolof 0.005002 40.037 CEU YRI Banyarwanda -0.01206 -74.707 YRI Juhoansi Baganda -0.00067 -6.157 CEU YRI Barundi -0.00904 -64.071 YRI Juhoansi Barundi -0.00207 -19.407 CEU YRI LWK -0.00322 -21.533 YRI Juhoansi Banyarwanda -0.00044 -3.81 CEU YRI Kalenjin -0.01042 -50.547 YRI Juhoansi LWK -0.00017 -1.394 CEU YRI Kikuyu -0.01618 -89.291 YRI Juhoansi Kikuyu 0.003081 20.333 CEU YRI SOMALI
    [Show full text]
  • Genomics Research in Africa: Implications for Disease Diagnosis, Treatment
    Genomics Research in Africa: Implications for Disease Diagnosis, Treatment and Drug Development Proceedings of the 5th Annual Meeting of the African Society of Human Genetics Short title: AfSHG proceedings 2007 Melanie J Newport 1, Sonia Abdelhak 2, Eman Abulezz 3, Adebowale Adeyemo 4, Gail Davey 5, Yehia Gad 3, Branwen J Hennig 6, Patricia A Marshall 7, Amal M. Mohamed 3, Charmaine D Royal 8, Himla Soodyall 9 and Charles N Rotimi 4 for the AfSHG. 1Department of Medicine, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Falmer, Sussex, UK 2Institut Pasteur de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia 3Division of Human Genetics and Genome Research, National Research Center, Elbehooth Street, Dokki, Giza, 12311 Egypt. 4NIH-Intramural Center for Genomics and Health Disparities, NHGRI/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA 5School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia 6Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK 7Department of Bioethics. School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University. Cleveland, Ohio, USA 8Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, Duke University, North Carolina, USA 9Human Genomic Diversity and Disease Research Unit, University of Witwatersand, Johannesburg, South Africa 1 Corresponding author: Melanie Newport, Department of Medicine, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Falmer, Sussex, BN1 9PS, UK; tel: +44 (0) 1273 877882; fax +44(0)1273877884; email: [email protected] Key words: human genetics, African populations, African genome project, non- communicable diseases, infectious diseases, pharmacogenetics, 2 Abstract This paper presents the proceedings of the 5 th Annual Meeting of the African Society of Human Genetics, which took place in Cairo, Egypt, on 3 rd -5th November 2007.
    [Show full text]
  • Genetic Structure in Four West African Population Groups Adebowale a Adeyemo*1,2, Guanjie Chen2, Yuanxiu Chen2 and Charles Rotimi2
    BMC Genetics BioMed Central Research article Open Access Genetic structure in four West African population groups Adebowale A Adeyemo*1,2, Guanjie Chen2, Yuanxiu Chen2 and Charles Rotimi2 Address: 1College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan. Nigeria and 2National Human Genome Center, Howard University, Washington DC, USA Email: Adebowale A Adeyemo* - [email protected]; Guanjie Chen - [email protected]; Yuanxiu Chen - [email protected]; Charles Rotimi - [email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 24 June 2005 Received: 01 December 2004 Accepted: 24 June 2005 BMC Genetics 2005, 6:38 doi:10.1186/1471-2156-6-38 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/6/38 © 2005 Adeyemo et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Africa contains the most genetically divergent group of continental populations and several studies have reported that African populations show a high degree of population stratification. In this regard, it is important to investigate the potential for population genetic structure or stratification in genetic epidemiology studies involving multiple African populations. The presences of genetic sub-structure, if not properly accounted for, have been reported to lead to spurious association between a putative risk allele and a disease. Within the context of the Africa America Diabetes Mellitus (AADM) Study (a genetic epidemiologic study of type 2 diabetes mellitus in West Africa), we have investigated population structure or stratification in four ethnic groups in two countries (Akan and Gaa-Adangbe from Ghana, Yoruba and Igbo from Nigeria) using data from 372 autosomal microsatellite loci typed in 493 unrelated persons (986 chromosomes).
    [Show full text]
  • The African Diaspora: History, Adaptation and Health
    Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect The African diaspora: history, adaptation and health Charles N Rotimi, Fasil Tekola-Ayele, Jennifer L Baker and Daniel Shriner The trans-Atlantic slave trade brought millions of Africans to the We illustrate opportunities offered by the African Dias- New World. Advances in genomics are providing novel insights pora to study interactions of old genes with modern into the history and health of Africans and the diasporan environments, thereby lending novel insights into disease populations. Recent examples reviewed here include the etiology, ancestry-based disease gene mapping, and unraveling of substantial hunter-gatherer and ‘Eurasian’ health disparities. admixtures across sub-Saharan Africa, expanding our understanding of ancestral African genetics; the global ubiquity The African diaspora — history and definition of mixed ancestry; the revealing of African ancestry in Latin The term ‘African Diaspora’ first appeared in the litera- Americans that likely derived from the slave trade; and ture in the 1950s and has been broadly defined to include understanding of the ancestral backgrounds of APOL1 and LPL all global communities descended from the historic found to influence kidney disease and lipid levels, respectively, th migrations of peoples from Africa since the 15 century providing specific insights into disease etiology and health [3,4]. This delineates it from the pre-historic Out-of- disparities. Africa migrations that led to the peopling of the world. Address The African Diaspora
    [Show full text]
  • What Does Genomic Medicine Mean for Diverse Populations?
    INVITED COMMENTARY What does genomic medicine mean for diverse populations? Adebowale Adeyemo & Charles Rotimi Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892 doi: 10.1002/mgg3.63 The completion of the effort to sequence the human gen- ability of empirical evidence generated from research. It is ome opened up a new era in human genomics. The new gratifying that each new development in genomics has tools and technologies developed, as well as new models been followed by studies that apply the new tools and for collaboration, data sharing, and data release provided technologies to the study of disease and treatment a good foundation for the international projects that response. For example, the International HapMap Project attempted to characterize genomic variation in diverse was swiftly followed by GWAS, which have now been populations. The first of these global efforts, the Interna- applied to scores of diseases, resulting in over 1700 publi- tional HapMap Project (http://www.hapmap.org), gener- cations as of December 2013 (NHGRI GWAS catalog – ated a catalog of common genetic variation in eleven http://www.genome.gov/26525384), with implications for global populations reflecting different ancestries. The disease risk, pathogenesis, and treatment response. How- 1000 Genomes Project (http://www.1000genomes.org) ever, the vast majority of these applied studies have been greatly expanded the scope of known human variation by performed only in European ancestry populations (Hind- sequencing over 2500 individuals from 26 global popula- orff et al. 2009; Need and Goldstein 2009) and most of tions.
    [Show full text]
  • Four Global Commissions in the Wake of Ebola
    Georgetown University Law Center Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW 2016 Toward a Common Secure Future: Four Global Commissions in the Wake of Ebola Lawrence O. Gostin Georgetown University Law Center, [email protected] Oyewale Tomori Nigeria Academy of Sciences Suwit Wibulpolprasert Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand Ashish K. Jha Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Julio Frenk University of Miami See next page for additional authors This paper can be downloaded free of charge from: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1775 http://ssrn.com/abstract=2790862 13(5) Plos Med. 1-15 (May 19, 2016) This open-access article is brought to you by the Georgetown Law Library. Posted with permission of the author. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub Part of the Health Law and Policy Commons, Health Policy Commons, International Humanitarian Law Commons, Public Health Commons, and the Virus Diseases Commons Authors Lawrence O. Gostin, Oyewale Tomori, Suwit Wibulpolprasert, Ashish K. Jha, Julio Frenk, Suerie Moon, Joy Phumaphi, Peter Piot, Barbara Stocking, Victor J. Dzau, and Gabriel M. Leung This article is available at Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1775 POLICY FORUM Toward a Common Secure Future: Four Global Commissions in the Wake of Ebola Lawrence O. Gostin1*, Oyewale Tomori2, Suwit Wibulpolprasert3, Ashish K. Jha4, Julio Frenk5, Suerie Moon6, Joy Phumaphi7, Peter Piot8, Barbara Stocking9, Victor J. Dzau10, Gabriel M. Leung11 1 O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, United States of America, 2 Nigeria Academy of Sciences, Lagos, Nigeria, 3 Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand, 4 Harvard T.H.
    [Show full text]
  • Enabling the Genomic Revolution in Africa
    INSIGHTS | PERSPECTIVES barrier that culminated in the RESEARCH CAPACITY speciation of these two crow taxa. Armed with this new very detailed genetic informa- Enabling tion, it is clear that none of the currently formulated species concepts fully apply to these the genomic two crow taxa (unless one is willing relax some stringency Sw in the various definitions). In- revolution deed, the genomes of German carrion crows are much more in Africa similar to those of hooded Po crows than to Spanish car- rion crows. Put simply, apart H3Africa is developing from the few carrion crow type capacity for health-related “speciation islands,” German Ge carrion crows could be con- genomics research in Africa sidered to represent hooded Sp crows with a black (carrion By The H3Africa Consortium * † crow) phenotype. There is a clear need for ad- ur understanding of genome biology, ditional population genomic genomics, and disease, and even hu- studies using a more dense man history, has advanced tremen- sampling, especially among dously with the completion of the 1.0 the fully black carrion crows, Human Genome Project. Technologi- on August 3, 2014 Ancestry 0.5 Sp Ge Po Sw before the complexity of repro- cal advances coupled with significant 0.0 ductive isolation and speciation Ocost reductions in genomic research have among these two taxa can be yielded novel insights into disease etiol- Speciation battleground. On either side of the narrow hybridization fully understood. The specia- ogy, diagnosis, and therapy for some of zone (dark brown), the carrion crow (Corvus corone) (dark area) tion genomics strategy already the world’s most intractable and devastat- and hooded crow (Corvus cornix) (pale area) ( 2) maintain their proved itself in unraveling the ing diseases—including ma- marked phenotypic differentiation, despite apparent lack of genetic complexities of mimicry among POLICY laria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, differentiation.
    [Show full text]
  • Peter Sands, M.P.A. (Chair) Is a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School
    Peter Sands, M.P.A. (Chair) is a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. He is also lead non-executive director of the Board of the United Kingdom’s Department of Health. Mr. Sands was Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered Bank from November 2006 to June 2015. He joined the Board of Standard Chartered PLC as Group Finance Director in May 2002. Before his appointment as Group Chief Executive he was responsible for Finance, Strategy, Risk and Technology and Operations. Prior to joining Standard Chartered, Mr. Sands was a director with worldwide consultants McKinsey & Company. He had been with McKinsey since 1988 where he worked extensively in the banking and technology sectors in a wide range of international markets. He was elected a partner in 1996 and became a director in 2000. Prior to joining McKinsey, he worked for the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Mr. Sands graduated from Oxford University and holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University, where he was a Harkness Fellow. Oyewale Tomori, D.V.M., Ph.D. (Vice Chair) is President of the Nigerian Academy of Science and pioneer Vice-Chancellor of Redeemer’s University, Nigeria. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Science of Nigeria, a Fellow of the College of Veterinary Surgeons of Nigeria, Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of the United Kingdom, and Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Dr. Tomori received his D.V.M. from the Ahmadu Bello University in 1971 and his Ph.D.
    [Show full text]
  • Ihr Committee Members Polio
    Biographies of the members of, and advisers to, the IHR Emergency Committee concerning ongoing events and context involving transmission and international spread of poliovirus Professor Helen Rees (CHAIR) GCOB OBE MB BChir MA(CANTAB) MRCGP DRCOG DCH, Executive Director, Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Professor Rees is the Chairperson of the Board of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority. She has served on and chaired many national and global scientific committees and boards. She was the Chair of the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation (SAGE) and she now chairs the WHO’s African Regional Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (RITAG). Since 2014 Professor Rees has been the Chair of the Emergency Committee regarding the international spread of poliovirus. From 2015 to 2016, she was a member of the Review Committee on the Role of the International Health Regulations (2005) in the Ebola Outbreak and Response tasked with making recommendations to WHO about steps required to improve the global response to public health emergencies and is a member of the IHR Emergency Committee on Yellow Fever. She was the Chair of the WHO SAGE Committee on the Use of Vaccines in Humanitarian Emergencies and is now the Co-Chair of the WHO SAGE Committee on Ebola vaccines as well as chairing the WHO’s Maternal Influenza Immunisation Advisory Review Committee. She is a member of the WHO SAGE Committee evaluating progress towards the Decade of Vaccines, and a member of the WHO SAGE Measles and Rubella Working Group. Professor Rees is a member of the Gavi Board and the Gavi Programme and Policy Committee, and chairs the Gates Foundation’s Committee on Single Dose HPV vaccines.
    [Show full text]
  • African Genomics Project Takes Shape at Cape Town Meeting
    NEWS African genomics project takes shape at Cape Town meeting CAPE TOWN — More than 200 medical populations. For instance, the presence of a researchers met under sunny skies here on duplication within CYP2D6, a gene associated 4 and 5 March to discuss practical ways for with adverse reaction to codeine, a common the African continent to start benefiting from painkiller, varies widely between African advances in genomics. populations, from being totally absent among The meeting’s aim was to inform the design South Africa’s Bantu population to being of the $37 million, five-year Human Heredity present in 29% of Ethiopians and nearly 40% and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative. of Algerians. The initiative, funded by the Wellcome Trust, Other studies hint to the danger of using a UK medical research charity, and the US studies on Europeans as a basis for clinical National Institutes of Health (NIH), aims to care in Africa. One paper found that African- bring modern medical technology to bear on Americans had a higher frequency of a Africa’s heavy disease burden. variant in the gene TPMT associated with Africans are extremely genetically deafness induced by the cancer drug cisplatin diverse—yet little is known about this than did people of European ancestry (Nat. variance and its health impact. To date, three Genet. 41, 1345–1349, 2009). With cancer quarters of the thousands of genetics studies cases a “looming epidemic” in Africa, such completed worldwide have been conducted insights are increasingly valuable, says on populations of European descent. Africans Michael Hayden, a geneticist at the University are also poorly represented in international of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada genetics projects such as the HapMap and who attended the meeting.
    [Show full text]