Developing Excellence in Leadership and Genetic Training for Malaria Elimination in Sub-Saharan Africa (DELGEME) (360G-Wellcome-107740_Z_15_Z)

Despite recent important progress in decreasing malaria burden around the World, globally, an estimated 198 million cases of malaria occurred globally in 2013, leading to to 584 000 deaths. The burden is heaviest in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 90% of all malaria deaths occur, and in children aged under 5 years, who account for 78% of all deaths. [WHO 2014]. The high level of diversity of malaria parasites in the African continent contravenes elimination strategies and sustains the high burden of the disease in Africa. Knowledge of the genome wide diversity of the parasite, gene flow and adaptive processes are required to develop and refine elimination strategies. Indeed, the confirmation of Plasmodium falciparum artemisinin resistance in South-East Asia calls for pre-emptive surveillance of African parasite populations for genetic markers of emerging drug resistance. Because of unprecedented technological advances, there is a sharp increase in the production of genetic data from a range of pathogens including malaria parasites. Yet, very little of these thousands of terabites of sequence data has been translated into knowledge relevant for malaria control. This is mainly due to the fact that there is a "strong wall" between the malaria control community and the geneticists, indeed the two groups hardly understandeach other's languages. We propose to "tear down this wall". Indeed the translation of these genetic sequences into knowledge requires cutting edge skills that are currently lacking in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, genetics is increasingly required for decision making in major public health threats such as HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and other tropical diseases. To address this gap, a couple of years ago we established an African-led consortium, the African Plasmodium Diversity Network (PDNA) [Ghansah et al. Science]. PDNA includes Research and Academic Institutions from fifteen countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Through this DELTAS Africa proposal, which is driven by the PDNA leaders, will primarily focus on bridging the gap between public health community and geneticist through effectively engaging health workers and communities to interact with relevant genetic information. The main aims of this training programme will be to (1)Train, retain and develop graduates,doctoral and Postdoctoral fellows on genomics and bioinformatics across malaria endemic countries and (2) Develop programs to enhance the understanding and dissemination of genetic data relevant to malaria interventions and eradication programmes. Short-term training will be delivered for PDNA fellows including public health officers on genetics, clinical studies, ethics, grant writing, grant management and student supervision. Formal long-term curricula (big data science, biostatistics, health informatics, genomics, cell biology, molecular biology and bioinformatics) will be designed and implemented with contribution and oversight from a wide range of local and International Faculty and relevant advisory boards. Trainees already familiar with or actively involved in disease control will be targeted for recruitment. Customized career development and mentorship of targeted scientists will reveal and nurture new leaders in these specific fields.We will increasing the number of skilled Africans capable of leading the field and fulling exploiting genetics for the improvement of health in Africa.