‘The field of human ancestry is rife with racism’: pioneering project to build cancer database in Africa | Global development

WHen Yaw Bediako has lost his father for liver cancer, he put the Ghanaian immunity on a journey to learn more about the disease. Soon he realized that the burden of cancer in Africa was much greater than he thought – which represents About 700,000 deaths Every year – this is very few scientific papers about the disease on the continent.

I realized that cancer is this huge disease in Africa “This does not get a lot of research attention, but not just an African problem, it is universal … it stands out as a problem that does not distinguish between geographical areas or social and economic class,” he says.

Fifteen years after the death of his father, he leads Bidiako Yemen BiotechAnd it is a company that was established in 2020 in the capital of Ghana, Accra, dedicated to building the largest, and perhaps first database of genetic and clinical information in Africa from up to 7,500 cancer patients.

Its employees, most of them in the middle to the late twenties, are pulled from all over the continent. More than half of the female workforce.

The Atlas of African Cancer will provide an insight into cancer in the African population, and it is invaluable for drug discoveries and treatment research, with helping to treat variations in the results of cancer. It will be available for free for African researchers. Last month, the Swiss Pharmaceutical Pharmaceutical Roche She announced that she would support the project With financing and technical support.

The initiative will include a sub -collection of data on children. and It is estimated 85 % of children’s cancer It occurs in low -income countries (LMics) with 30 % survival rates, compared to 80 % among children living in high -income countries.

Less than 2 % of human genres (Which contains all the genetic information of people) that has been analyzed so far was those of the Africans, although the continent with 17 % of the world’s population has the most diverse gene.

This contrast hindered the global understanding and treatment of cancer, especially for the African population.

Dr. Patrick Cavoy Akkbo, a pathology specialist at Cape Causte University Hospital and has a special interest in breast cancer, does not realize this. in GhanaWomen are exposed to negative triple breast cancer, which is a rapidly growing and aggressive type that is difficult to treat.

“We realize that the African Genome is not a good studied like the European,” he says. “We have very few clinical trials that occur, most of which are in infectious diseases, not cancer. This means that we do not have experience or data to support the effectiveness of medicines in our people.”

Bediako, a Ghanaian snake who studied in the United States, believes that the scarcity of genetic data in Africa is partly due to structural inequality.

He says: “The field of human origin is filled with racism and discrimination.” “You cannot overlook those possible reasons that certain groups offer.”

With a little data for non -European population, Bediako adds, and drugs that are not effective for all people have been developed. But the problem goes beyond race, he says.

“You can find Europeans whose genomics will have certain more common features in Africans,” he indicates. “So by being more comprehensive in the genomics we are studying, we will have the opportunity to develop solutions.”

Pharmaceutical companies are keen to see scientific research in genetic diversity in Africa. In 2021, GSK and Novartis announced that they would cooperate in research to explore links between genetic diversity and African patients respond to malaria and tuberculosis drugs. And in 2023, Four Pharma companies She donated 20 million dollars (15 million pounds) to a sequence of 500,000 American and African genes.

Bediako looks forward to financing more expensive businesses in Yemaachi Biotech, albeit with some fear.

“I am not naive,” he says. “We all know stories when things are not going well or not in the interest of people, but I also think that there are good people working in large drug companies and we will not have any medications if it is not for them.”

Nowadays, financing is mostly investors – inside and outside Africa – as well as grants and charitable work. Bediako’s goal for Yemen Biotech is to be able to finance more work through commercial partnerships.

This brings with it moral problems about the use of patient data to achieve financial gains. “We realize that we have to do something,” says Aida Manu, director of operations at the company.

The team must work hard to persuade foreign investors. “We call it Africa’s tax, or the black tax,” says David Hatfol, one of the company’s founders and chief technology employees. “This is not explicit but it comes when investors ask certain questions that sometimes show that they have little practical knowledge in Africa.” He says, for example, that people asked him if there was enough electricity to operate the freezers for the samples.

Despite the challenges, the team is enthusiastic about potential drugs and stereotypes. “My hope for this company beyond all the science and work that we do is the depiction of Africa that I know now, and I love and I want to contribute,” says Bidiako.

“One day, my dream will have medications used to treat cancer all over the world that will be derived from the knowledge created from this continent – which shows that Africa has something to offer to the world.”