NIH Awards $17 Million in Grants to Augment Genomics Research in Africa
The National Institutes of Health has awarded 10 new grants totaling up to $17 million over the next 4 years to support genomics research in Africa, as part of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) program. This set of grants is the second disbursement of H3Africa awards and brings the total amount of funding since the 2010 launch of the program to about $74 million. In addition to genomics research, the new awards will support training of African genomic scientists and building scientific infrastructure on the continent. H3Africa is funded by a partnership between NIH and the United Kingdom's Wellcome Trust.
"These H3Africa awards demonstrate our continued commitment to furthering the capacity for genomics research on the African continent," said Eric D. Green, MD, PhD, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). "Studying human diseases within populations with the greatest genetic variability and encouraging the contributions of our African colleagues should yield new insights about the role of genetics in health and disease."
Award Recipients
The new awards include funding for two additional H3Africa collaborative centers, one that will study the risk factors for stroke and another that will study the role of the human vaginal microbiome in cervical cancer. New individual research projects will study several other health conditions important in Africa, including neurologic disorders, respiratory diseases, fevers of unknown origin, tuberculosis, and African sleeping sickness.
Two H3Africa awards will support new biorepository pilot projects. The scaled-up H3Africa biorepositories will house the samples collected through H3Africa research projects and make them available to the entire research community. In addition, the awards include the first grant being made for an H3Africa ethical, legal, and social implications component.
"We were pleased that the second round of applications for the NIH H3Africa program was of such high quality," said Jane Peterson, PhD, Project Coordinator for H3Africa and Senior Advisor to the NHGRI Office of the Director. "The new awards increase the number of countries participating in H3Africa and expand the range of health conditions being studied. The combined NIH and Wellcome Trust H3Africa program will now support research projects in 27 African countries and 93 collaborators throughout Africa."
"H3Africa is creating new opportunities for collaboration among genomics researchers around Africa and is achieving the program's goal to form a strong backbone of research capacity in Africa," said James Anderson, MD, PhD, Director of the NIH Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, which plans and implements trans-NIH initiatives of the NIH Common Fund, including H3Africa.
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