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Bioinformatics in Africa
A survey of CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and NEPAD (New
Partnership for Africa's Development) was carried out to assess the status of bioinformatics
in Africa and the report clearly shows that many countries do have the appropriate set-up for
using bioinformatics. It also highlights that many have state of the art facilities for
biotechnology projects in the health and agricultural sectors. West Africa has several WHO
centres working on parasitic infectious agents namely Onchocerciasis, tuberculosis and
malaria to understand the epidemiology of the diseases and the host response to treatments.
Nigeria has had an agenda to address the gap in bioinformatics since 2003 and has a Centre
for Applied Biotechnology, Bioinformatics and Microbiology. Current work focuses on
genome analysis of Plasmodium falciparum. Tunisia has a strong bioinformatics set-up at the
Institut Pasteur de Tunis since 2005. Activities are centered around host-parasite interactions
for Leishmaniasis, sequence annotation, ab initio gene prediction, and modelling of signal
transduction pathways.
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya has a powerful bioinformatics
infrastructure with support facility and High Performance computing platform. Work is ongoing
in functional genomics and proteomics of tropical pathogens, structural bioinformatics,
microarray data analysis as well as host-pathogen interactions. Two important themes of
research are: Theileria parva and African trypanosomes. The quality of the research is
evident from the very high level of the publications from this institute.
Bioinformatics in Southern Africa is dominated by South Africa. The National
Bioinformatics Network coordinates a number of nodes located in universities and the
strategy has a strong component of training. This has resulted in a very rapid dissemination of
knowledge around the country thus benefitting the tertiary level students. The research output
is of international standard and reflects the very high level of work being undertaken.
On the other hand the rest of Southern Africa has very little to show with regards to
bioinformatics. Although most universities have been teaching molecular biology and
biotechnology for more than a decade, research has stagnated because of limited resources.
These countries have relatively low socio-economic conditions, and are striving to raise their
living standards. To decrease their dependence on external assistance, whether financial or
technical, a change in direction is necessary so as to reorient investment to research and
development in science and technology. For a competitive economy to be productive,
investment in science and technology is primordial as this is what drives innovation and turns
research into high-value products. Southern Africa has an urgent need to catch up on its late
start in the field of biotechnology and bioinformatics. Universities are called upon to drive
changes in society through knowledge dissemination and creation. Successful economies are
knowledge-intensive and today, the competitive edge of nations is their scientific excellence.
Southern African nations should invest in higher level scientific activities that are likely to
bring opportunities to the growing number of young people ready to take up the challenge of
economic sustainability. Health care and food production will remain the main priorities but
environmental issues together with technology development must not be neglected.
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