The Opportunity In African Genome Resource For Precision Medicine: Dr. Segun Fatumo

There is a critical need to increase and diversify genomic study in the global efforts to achieving full implementation of precision medicine. Given this central importance of Africa to human origins, genetic diversity, and disease susceptibility, there is a clear scientific and public health need to develop large-scale efforts that examines disease susceptibility across diverse populations within Africa. The marked genomic diversity and allelic differentiation among populations in Africa, in combination with the substantially lower linkage disequilibrium (correlation) among genetic variants, will provide excellent opportunities to gain new insights into disease aetiology and genetic fine mapping that have relevance for African populations and globally. Importantly, given varying environments and adaptation, the spectrum and distribution of risk factors for a broad range of non-infectious and infectious diseases, and their individual contribution, may differ in African populations compared with European populations or those of African descent in Europe, North America and elsewhere. However, despite the value of conducting such studies in Africa, there have been relatively few investigations of population diversity and the genetic determinants of non-infectious or infectious traits and diseases across the continent. While there is an urgent need to perform large-scale genomic research in Africa, several ongoing initiatives such as H3Africa and the Nigerian 100K Non-Communicable Diseases – Genetic Heritage Study (NCD-GHS) could provide the data to improve the evidence base and make genome medicine useful to diverse populations. These large-scale population-based African-ancestry cohorts could provide opportunities to: (1) discover novel disease susceptibility loci; (2) refine association signals at new and existing loci; (3) develop research capacity for genomics in Africa; and (4) enhance African participation in the global genomics research arena. I anticipate that these efforts will contribute to making genomic studies in Africa more comparable with European and Asian initiatives. The findings from such large-scale efforts may foster the development of new treatments that will benefit people living in Africa as well as people of African descent around the world.