Newswise – Paper recently published by Nature describes the complex process of launching a nine-country collaboration in Africa to greatly advance scientists’ understanding of human genetics. This could reveal new insights into diseases such as cancer, mental illness, diabetes and heart disease, benefiting health systems around the world.
The Assessing Genetic Diversity in Africa (AGENDA) project generated genome sequence data from more than 1000 individuals from populations that are mostly underrepresented in global genomic databases.
The effort is expected to reveal millions of new genetic variants that could change the way disease risk is predicted and how treatments are tailored.
AGENDA is a deeply collaborative project with balanced contributions developed through co-creation. This study includes hunter-gatherer communities, Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic speakers, uneducated Bantu-speaking groups, and island communities in North Africa and the Indian Ocean.
In collaboration with local research teams, participants were recruited in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya, Mauritius, Rwanda, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe with project coordination from South Africa.
“Most of the genomic data used to predict disease risk are from European populations.” As a result, the genes that guide modern medicine have Eurocentric diseases and predict African diseases. (SBIMB) at Wits University and chief academic officer.
African genes are older and more diverse than those of any other continent. Two Africans from different regions can be genetically more different than a European and an Asian. In the absence of African data, genetic tools may fail to detect many risk factors and produce inaccurate estimates of disease risk.
“AGENDA is about correcting that imbalance so that genetic research and the resulting medical interventions work for people in Africa and the world,” says Dr Furahini Tluway, AGENDA Project Coordinator at SBIMB and co-author of the study. “By whole-genome sequencing and not just small panels of genes, we’re creating a lot of data that scientists can use everywhere,” he says.
Professor Scott Hazelhurst, head of bioinformatics at SBIMB, explains the impact of the technique: “Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) rely on detecting patterns in DNA, but those patterns look very different across populations. volume.”
Meanwhile AGENDA hopes to be a good example of research governance: led from the continent by African scientists. Data sharing is regulated through African data access committees that review who can use the data, for what purpose and under what conditions. The community is involved before any sampling begins, and consent procedures are adapted to local languages, cultures and governance systems.
This approach ensures that participants are not just researchers but informed partners whose rights, values and expectations affect the way data is collected, stored and shared. It also protects against the use of African data history without African control.
AGENDA builds on more than a decade of African-led genomic science through the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Consortium. H3Africa is a pan-African initiative designed to strengthen genomics research capacity on the continent and ensure that Africans benefit from genomic therapy. H3Africa has supported a number of major research projects, trained scientists across Africa, and developed major genomic tools that are now used around the world.
One of these tools is AWI-Gen (Africa Wits-INDEPTH Partnership for Genomic Studies), a flagship project of H3Africa led by Wits University. AWI-Gen studies the genetics and environment of cardiovascular diseases such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension in African populations.
“The selection of populations for sequencing genomic studies has often been selected from existing samples. In fact, this has resulted in large gaps in genomic representation in terms of geography and human diversity.” Our strategy of targeting underserved areas and identifying partners from these areas has enabled us to deal with some of the most prominent and prominent areas, such as North Africa. including Nilo-Saharan, Afro-Asiatic and African Islander populations who are under-represented in current demographics,” said Dr Ananyo Choudhury, co-leader of AGENDA and senior scientist at SBIMB.
Over time, AGENDA data will help build African genetics centers used for disease research, genetic testing and medicine worldwide. This will improve research on diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases and infections, which affect the population of Africa. In turn, this will make the world’s medical science more accurate.
“Because African genes contain the deepest branches of human genetic history, they help scientists distinguish ancient genetic variants from recent ones and help identify variants that actually drive disease,” says Ramsay. “Learning about Africa’s diversity improves genetic science for everyone,” says Ramsay.
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