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Celebrating 100 Years of Health Sciences
a heavy burden of existing and emergent diseases.
However, programmes are notoriously expensive, due
to the scale of research – many thousands of genes,
proteins, or small molecules are measured in parallel,
through time and under different environmental
conditions, in a large number of biological samples,
in order to enable statistically significant quantitative
conclusions.
This is beyond the scope of traditional South African
funding agencies. Fortunately, major international
donors are increasingly committing to funding functional
genomics research at UCT. Examples of these partnerships
include the National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome
Trust that, together with the African Society for Human
Genetics, fund the Human Heredity and Health in Africa
initiative (H3Africa); the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
(BMGF); the European and Developing Countries Clinical
Trial Programme (EDCTP); and the Canadian Institutes for
Health Research (CIHR).
The H3Africa initiative studies the genomic and
environmental determinants of disease in Africa,
supporting African population-based genomic studies
of common, non-communicable and communicable
diseases. It also aims to build capacity for genomics
research; create and expand genomics research
infrastructure on the African continent, by supporting
the development of a bioinformatics network and
pilot biorepositories; and fund studies of the societal
implications of genetic and genomics research.
African population-based genomic studies of common,
non-communicable disorders, such as heart and renal
disease, and communicable diseases like tuberculosis,
is critical and is being led by African scientists – many
of whom are at UCT.
Researchers typically work in multidisciplinary
collaborations across a number of experimental
platforms, which are made possible through established
collaborative networks within UCT and beyond.
The future prospects for major breakthroughs in both
infectious and non-communicable diseases is bright,
even though it is a long and often rocky road that
leads to discovery and validation of the sort of disease-
associated biomarkers that can be translated into
lifesaving healthcare innovation.
Research is heavily dependent on
the availability of sophisticated
bioinformatics tools and expertise to
analyse and make sense of the vast
quantities of raw experimental data
generated – an area of increasing
strength for UCT.
South Africa provides a remarkable
wealth of clinical resources, including
a population that represents more
than 95% of the world’s human genetic
diversity, along with a heavy burden of
existing and emergent diseases.