Humans in Africa have more diversity in their genomes than any other population in the world. However, African people have been underrepresented in genomic studies, meaning the relevance of conclusions drawn from the data is unclear for people of African ancestry.
There is now a plan to set up centres of excellence for genomics across Africa, in order to transform access to cutting-edge technologies.
It is hoped that the centres will help to reshape the response to Africa's most pressing health challenges.
Professor Nicola Mulder from the University of Cape Town said 'there's a lot of inequality in terms of the ability to apply genomics to healthcare... The vision for this genomic centre of excellence in Africa is to create a network of centres that are coordinated, working together to address the burden of disease and improving the health and wellbeing of African populations,’.
More on the plans for the network of genomic centres in Africa can be found in this Chemistry World article.
