7 – 9 October 2026, Pretoria, South Africa
Organisers:
Luiz Zerbini (ICGEB Cape Town, South Africa), Lawrence Banks (ICGEB, Trieste, Italy), Rachel Chikwamba and Janine Scholefield (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – CSIR)
Meeting Venue:
CSIR International Conference Centre, East of Pretoria, South Africa
In collaboration with:
Speakers
- Mosoka Papa Fallah, Africa CDC – Director of innovation, Liberia
- Evelyn Gitau, Chief Scientific Officer – Science for Africa Foundation, Kenya
- Yenew Kebede, Africa CDC – HOD – Laboratory Network and Systems, Ethiopia
- Tinashe Mazhindu, Senior Scientist, African Institute of Biomedical Science and Technology (AiBST), Zimbabwe
- Francine Ntoumi, Congolese Foundation for Medical Research; University Marien Ngouabi, Republic of Congo
- Ntobeko Ntusi, President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), South Africa
- Brando Okolo, Head of Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) at African Union Development Agency-NEPAD, South Africa
- Lisa Roberts, SASHG – Southern African Society for Human Genetics (SASHG), South Africa
- Kumaraswamy Thangaraj, CSIR Government of India – Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, India
- Sarah A. Tishkoff, Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, Director, Penn Center for Global Genomics & Health Equity, USA
- David Twesigomwe, Assistant Professorship in Genomics, Uganda Research Unit’s Uganda Medical Informatics Centre (UMIC), Uganda
- Ambroise Wonkam, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; University of Cape Town (GeneMAP), Cameroon/USA/South Africa
- Ammar Azioune, Director Centre de Recherche en Biotechnologie de Constantine, Algeria
- Inas Alhudiri, Head of Genetic Engineering Department, Libyan Biotechnology Research Centre, Tripoli, Libya
- Zané Lombard, Research Professor, Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience (SBIMB) and Roche Research Chair for Precision Medicine and Genomics in Africa, Faculty of Health Sciences, Wits University, South Africa
- Cissy Kityo Mutuluuza, Executive Director, Joint Clinical Research Centre, Uganda
- Julie Makani, Principal Investigator, MUHAS Sickle Cell Programme, Tanzania
- Charles Wells, Chief Medical Officer, Gates Medical Research Institute, USA
- Phila Msimang, Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, Stellenbosch University
- Manish Raisinghani, CEO, Target ALS, USA
- Tim Newman, CPGR CEO & DIPLOMICS Director, South Africa
- Hamilton Ganesan, Bioinformatics Manager, inqaba biotec, South Africa
- Nicki Adams, Field Application Scientist, Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc, South Africa
Africa holds the world’s greatest genetic diversity, however, genomic data from this wealth of variation is drastically under-represented. This ICGEB CSIR meeting in partnership with the South African Department of Science, Technology and Innovation emanates as a direct result of South Africa’s Presidency of the G20 Research and Innovation Working Group on the deliverable Building African Science capacity to better understand Africa’s human genetic diversity as a resource for improving African and global public health.
In acknowledging the importance of support for an acceleration of efforts to address human genetic diversity in the African continent, this meeting will provide a platform to discuss how the international community can best work together to support capacity building, infrastructure and funding related to Africa’s human genetic diversity research , platforms and model systems, as well as African owned therapeutics and diagnostics.
The meeting will bring together experts in the field to provide inputs and facilitate exchanges to promote efforts to build African science capacity to better understand how to practically apply African genetic diversity as a Global Resource for Public Health.
Meeting Location
CSIR International Conference Centre, East of Pretoria, South Africa
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