Abstract
The application of genomic tools and technologies has shown the potential to help improve healthcare and our understanding of disease mechanisms. While genomic tools are increasingly being applied to research on infectious diseases, malaria and neglected tropical diseases in Africa, an area that has seen little application of genomic approaches on this continent is neuroscience. In this article, we examined the prospects of developing neurogenomics research and its clinical use in Ghana, one of the African countries actively involved in genomics research. We noted that established international research funding sources and foundations in genomic research such as H3ABioNet nodes established at a couple of research centres in Ghana provide excellent platforms for extending the usage of genomic tools and techniques to neuroscience-related research areas. However, existing challenges such as the (i) lack of degree programmes in neuroscience, genomics and bioinformatics; (ii) low availability of infrastructure and appropriately-trained scientists; and (iii) lack of local research funding opportunities, need to be addressed. To promote and safeguard the long-term sustainability of neurogenomics research in the country, the impact of the existing challenges and possible ways of addressing them have been discussed.
Highlights
Genomic technologies are important resources in biomedical research and healthcare
A landmark study in this area is the African Genome Variation Project, which recently showed that genomic variations exist among some major African ethnic groups (Gurdasani et al, 2015)
Improved use of neurogenomic tools might help to identify the genomic regulation of these diseases among people of Ghanaian descent, and how this might differ from other populations in Africa and elsewhere
Summary
Genomic technologies are important resources in biomedical research and healthcare. Many healthcare delivery facilities, as well as research institutions and companies have adopted genomic tools and techniques to advance their activities (World Health Organization, 2002). In Africa, genomic research is gaining prominence because of the wide coverage of sequencing technologies, making it possible to comprehensively characterise genetic variants in order to obtain further insights into disease mechanisms, as well as individual and population differences in disease susceptibility, resistance and drug responses (H3Africa Consortium et al, 2014; Karikari and Aleksic, 2015). ⁎ Correspondence to: T.K. Karikari, School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom. Efficacy of different drugs and drug candidates for treating diseases in people of different populations and genetic backgrounds (Karikari and Aleksic, 2015). This would help to improve research into, and the development of, precision medicine. We discuss the challenges that would need to be addressed to enable this kind of transformation
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