Grants aim to boost African genomic research

Abstract

The international H3Africa consortium have announced their initial grants for African scientists researching the genomics of African diseases. Becky McCall reports. After nearly 3 years of plans and preparation, the inaugural research grants of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa Consortium (H3Africa) were announced last month by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Wellcome Trust. The two agencies have joined forces to fund large-scale population studies by African researchers on African populations. H3Africa will use genomic research in combination with clinical and environmental analyses to understand the interaction of genes and the environment in health and disease, including diabetes, heart disease, obesity, tuberculosis, and African sleeping sickness. Eric D Green, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), at the NIH said H3Africa offered a “spectacular opportunity” to use genomic research to elucidate the genetic and genomic base of human disease. “This [H3Africa] grew out of a strong desire to ensure Africa and African scientists and clinicians benefit from these opportunities and effectively capitalise on the worldwide genomics revolution”, he said. Over the next 5 years, NIH has committed US$25 million of grant support to H3Africa, and this has been bolstered by a further $13 million from the Wellcome Trust, contingent on the availability of funds. Pat Goodwin is Head of Pathogens, Immunology and Population Health Pathogens, Science Funding at the Wellcome Trust. She is also the organisation's funding lead for H3Africa. “The Trust's view is that scientists should not parachute in and take samples from Africa. We must empower African scientists to do their own research”, she told The Lancet. The Wellcome Trust is supporting three research networks under the initiative, including the RHDGen Network on the genetics of rheumatic heart disease. The project is spearheaded by Bongani Mayosi, head of the Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa. According to Mayosi, rheumatic heart disease is prevalent in up to 3% of the sub-Saharan school population and is particularly found in children and young adults living in conditions of poverty. Of the 2·5 million children under 15 years with rheumatic heart valve disease, half of them live in Africa. “We have four aims with this funding: to build a network of investigators on genomic research and rheumatic heart disease in eight African countries; to find genetic susceptibility factors facilitating identification of individuals at high risk; to train 16 African scientists and clinicians to become experts in genomic medicine; and to explore important ethical, social, and legal issues related to genetic research in Africa”, said Mayosi. The research gains are intended to be far-reaching. “We look forward to a situation when Africans working on African problems can provide information of benefit to everyone in the world”, he added. Underpinning the research efforts of H3Africa projects will be vast amounts of personal data. Core to all nine projects currently funded by H3Africa are the biorepository programme and the bioinformatics network. Robust international biorepositories on the African continent will store and distribute African biological samples and provide a site for high-quality, safe storage. “Importantly, these samples will be distributed for research studies on their [African] terms”, says Green. According to Clement Adebamowo, Director of Strategic Information, Research and Training at the Institute of Human Virology in Nigeria, Africans have a strong interest in genomic research because the continent continues to be plagued by epidemics of infection and increasingly non-communicable diseases. Adebamowo emphasises that the trust between researcher and research participant is paramount to African people. “Researchers have a responsibility not to betray that trust. Africans believe in the transactional relationship between the two parties which goes far beyond signing an informed consent form.” Adding insight to the H3Africa approach of having African scientists study African genomics, Adebamowo hopes the programme will reverse some of the worst aspects of old paradigms of research practice. “A lot of what African scientists currently do is take samples and ship them to laboratories in the more developed world”, he says. “H3Africa has huge potential to eliminate these modes of research exploitation and once that capacity and scientific infrastructure is in place, then Africans can do whatever research they want with it.” In essence, Green points out Africa has the greatest genetic diversity in the world, so it makes sense to research genomics there. “To coin a phrase, we want to change the situation from one of brain drain to one of brain gain. In a nutshell that is what H3Africa is all about.”