First GenPath Africa Annual Meeting held
One year into the project, the GenPath Africa consortium came together at the Biomedical Research Institute (BMRI) in Cape Town, South Africa, for its first in-person meeting on May 27-28, 2024.
On day one, the meeting commenced with a warm welcome from GenPath Africa’s coordinator Tulio de Oliveira (Stellenbosch University) and continued with in-depth presentations of the individual work packages. Following de Oliveira’s presentation on the project’s ongoing efforts to expand next-generation sequencing of multiple pathogens to respond to current and future epidemics, Annelies van Rie (University of Antwerp) and Rob Warren (Stellenbosch University) discussed the status of the PARR-TB study. This study aims to optimize methods of identifying current and emerging drug-resistant TB strains, with the goal to use next-generation sequencing to improve precision medicine and public health policy, both on a regional as well as an international level. Sam Oyola (International Livestock Research Institute) and Michele Miller (Stellenbosch University) reflected on the advances in establishing a wastewater surveillance system in Kenya and South Africa, which will enable researchers to increase genomic surveillance of pathogens in human and animal populations. Particularly of note here are efforts to track the Rift Valley Fever virus and Mycobacterium tuberculosis through wastewater-based surveillance.
In addition, Gerard Tromp (Stellenbosch University) provided insights into GenPath Africa’s data management and the digital tools that have been established to optimize data collection amongst the individual work packages. Cheryl Baxter and Samantha Sampson (Stellenbosch University) shared progress in the project’s capacity building efforts, which include in-depth training in genomic sequencing and analysis for African scientists. Rounding out the first day of the meeting, Claudia Schacht (LINQ) provided an overview of communication and dissemination tools and processes put in place during the project’s first year to help the consortium maximize visibility and uptake of its results in the coming years.
On the second day, the meeting continued with Christoph Cyranski’s (LINQ) presentation on GenPath Africa’s project management activities, followed by an in-depth discussion on ethics considerations during past and future project activities, led by independent ethics advisor Jerome Singh (University of Toronto). Lastly, Claudia Schacht reviewed GenPath Africa’s role within the GenEpi Network, a collaboration between five projects working together to strengthen genomic epidemiology in Sub-Saharan Africa. The second day of the meeting concluded with a fun virtual reality challenge during which project members could test their teamwork and communication skills.
We want to thank everyone who attended GenPath Africa’s first annual meeting and made it such a success! It was a great opportunity for the consortium to come together, engage in lively and productive discussion and exchange many exciting ideas for future work together.
