A recent five-year $US74.5 million award by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to promote data science and accelerate breakthroughs in health research in Africa was an outcome of decades-long efforts to advance genomics research and deploy genomic resources to solve public health challenges on the continent.
Since the 2003 completion of the Human Genome Project, an international research collaboration to identify the DNA sequence of the whole human genome, genomics has been widely adopted to aid disease diagnosis and expedite drug development globally.
The progress in Africa has been slow. Although African populations are the most genetically diverse, their genomes account for less than 2% of existing genomic studies. The reason is simple — studies mainly focus on individuals of European descent.
Recognizing the need to address this disparity, the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Initiative was launched in 2010, with funding provided by the NIH and Wellcome Trust, to unravel the genomic bases of communicable and non-communicable diseases in Africa. Now in its 11th year, H3Africa hosts more than 10 collaborative research centres and 4 bioinformatics training programmes. It has published genomic data on more than 79,000 individuals and established 3 biorepositories in South Africa, Nigeria and Uganda. Perhaps inspired by H3Africa’s success, there are calls for a ‘Three Million African Genomes’ project to sequence genomes of 3 million Africans over the age of 10.
In 2014, the Malaria Genomic Epidemiology Network started Ag1000G, a multinational partnership which applies whole genome sequencing to uncover natural genetic differences in mosquito populations across Africa, as part of wider genetic surveillance efforts. That same year, the African Genome Variation Project team published its findings on methodical examinations of genetic variations in 1,481 sub-Saharan African individuals, calling for increased genomic characterization of African populations. In Nigeria, the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) is building a critical mass of African genomics scientists trained to develop tools for eradicating infectious diseases. Since its inception in 2013, the centre has pursued genomics-based research into lassa fever, Ebola and malaria. The $8 million World Bank funding of ACEGID paid off – the centre sequenced Africa’s first SARS-Cov-2 genome sequence and developed a rapid COVID-19 diagnostic test.
The private sector is taking notice of these successes. BixBio, a South Africa, Cape Town-based, biotech startup which builds genetic tools to advance precision medicine secured Illumina Accelerator funding in September 2021). Elsewhere in Johannesburg, the African Institute of Everyone Genome biobank is partnering with Switzerland-based BC Platforms to bank 10 million African genomes over the next 15 years to facilitate clinical and drug discovery research. Since launching in 2019, Nigeria-based startup 54gene have raised more than $US40 million to develop genomic tools for advancing biomedical research in disease diagnosis, drug discovery and clinical trials.
Sustaining the current momentum of genomics research in Africa will require continent-wide financial commitment of governments to address widespread infrastructure challenges. This will build sustained local capacity and avoid sole reliance on foreign grants and private investors. Regulatory support is also needed to establish best practices for biobanking, ethics, data sharing and commercialization. Nonetheless, if the above stories are any indication, the future is indeed bright for the genomics research landscape in Africa.
Tochukwu Ozulumba, PhD (Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences), is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia, USA.
