Abstract

The South African government is committed to science and technology innovation, to establishing a knowledge-based economy and to harnessing life-sciences research for health and economic development. Given the constraints and the early stage of development of the field as a whole in South Africa, we found an impressive amount of research on human genomic variation in this country. Encouragingly, South Africa is beginning to apply genomics to address local health needs, including HIV and tuberculosis (TB) infections. We document a number of initiatives in South Africa that are beginning to study genetic variation within the various local indigenous populations. Other early initiatives focus on pharmacogenetic studies, mutation characterization in individual disease genes and genome-wide association studies. Public engagement in genomic issues is spear-headed by The Africa Genome Education Institute.

Author affiliations

1. Billie-Jo Hardy, Béatrice Séguin, Peter A. Singer and Abdallah S. Daar are at the McLaughlin–Rotman Centre for Global Health, Program on Life Sciences, Ethics and Policy, University Health Network and University of Toronto, MaRS Centre, South Tower, Suite 406, 101 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1L7, Canada.
2. Béatrice Séguin is also at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, 144 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3M2, Canada.
3. Raj Ramesar is at the MRC Human Genetics Research Unit, Division of Human Genetics, Institute for Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
4. Peter A. Singer and Abdallah S. Daar are also at the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine, MaRS Centre, Toronto Medical Discovery Tower, Suite 701, 101 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1L7, Canada.

Correspondence to: Abdallah S. Daar^1,4 Email: a.daar@utoronto.ca

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