The Drögemöller and Wright labs receive Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowships for their Graduate Training and Collaborative Research in Neurogenomics and Precision Medicine application

This funding has been provided to support a collaboration between the University of Manitoba and Stellenbosch University in South Africa to develop (i) a genomics analysis pipeline for the improved diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases in Manitoba and South Africa and (ii) workshops aimed at training graduate students in Neurogenomics & Precision Medicine at the University of Manitoba, Canada and Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Advances in genomic technologies and related analyses provide unprecedented opportunities for the field of precision medicine. Importantly, these advances have resulted in improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases. Unfortunately, African individuals have been under-represented in genomics research. Highlighting these disparities, it has been shown that although European descent individuals make up only 16% of the global population, they represent approximately 79% of participants that are included in genome-wide association studies. By developing international collaborations, as well as innovative graduate training strategies that merge the fields of neurogenomics and precision medicine, strategies can be developed to improve the diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases in the context of Africa.