It is often said that African research suffers because scientists are isolated from their colleagues elsewhere on the continent. For decades, scientists in Abuja or Nairobi have been more likely to collaborate with researchers [...]]]>

African scientists are less isolated from each other now thanks to regional networks, but they need broader scope, says Linda Nordling.

It is often said that African research suffers because scientists are isolated from their colleagues elsewhere on the continent. For decades, scientists in Abuja or Nairobi have been more likely to collaborate with researchers in the United States than with each other.

But this fragmentation could be coming to an end. Intra-continental links do now exist, albeit in certain groups, as an overview of African research networks published last month by Thomson Reuters shows.

The report, Global Research Report: Africa, looks at scientific papers published between 2004 and 2008, and identifies four subcontinental groupings with strong research connections.

The first lies in North Africa and includes Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.

A Francophone, largely West African, group centres on Cameroon and includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

Language — English this time — also plays a big part in a third group that links Nigeria, the Gambia and Ghana in West Africa with Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe in the east.

And South Africa provides the gateway to group four, which includes Gabon, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Sudan and Swaziland.

Each group centres on one or two scientific powerhouses that provide the hub for regional collaborations: Egypt, Cameroon, Nigeria and Kenya, and South Africa. This is not surprising as they are the strongest science nations in their geographical areas.

But how far has Africa come in breaking down this major research barrier?

History weighs heavily…

The picture that emerges from the Thomson Reuters study is that African research collaborations remain heavily dependent on — and limited by — the colonial past. This is particularly true for the North Africa group, which maintains strong links with Europe. Algeria and Tunisia, for example, have unique connections with France, co-authoring an exceptional share of publications.

The barriers to creating networks are not only rooted in language, culture and history but also in geography: most intra-continental networks exist among countries that lie close to each other — with two notable exceptions.

One is Nigeria, which, while having important connections with its West African neighbours, occupies a more significant position in the Anglophone network and also connects strongly to South Africa.

And South Africa, which is identified by Thomson Reuters as the “outstanding research leader” in Africa, is the only country to participate in all four groups.

But overall there is an absence of connections between groups, which has important implications.

For example, Egypt’s scant research links with Sub-Saharan Africa will do little to help its ambition to push the pan-African science agenda (see Egypt says it will propel African science agenda).

Networks built on historical relationships are artificial, adds Mammo Muchie, professor of innovation studies at the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa.

“We don’t want these silos. It not only short-changes Africans, who should be able to collaborate freely, but also foreign collaborators, who only get access to a limited part of Africa’s expertise,” he says.

…but globalism is the future

The authors of the Thomson Reuters report do not see the current networks and regional hubs as a problem. They present the networks as “development opportunities” with the strongest countries having “a potential transformational role” to provide the glue for more links.

“The future of the African research enterprise must depend to some significant extent on the ability of these countries to help facilitate further growth through leadership, strong local investment and the creation and support of key facilities and centres to draw in and assist currently less well resourced partners,” they conclude.

The authors add that the strongest nodes will be critical in linking African networks to global ones. For example, Nigeria is geographically, if not linguistically, well-positioned to extend its links westwards towards South America, and Egypt is a link to the Islamic research world.

These networks have implications for policymakers, says Caroline Wagner. She is the author of The New Invisible College, in which she argues that country-based science is giving way to international networks. She urges governments to move beyond national science policymaking towards networked models of science that focus on common problems.

But research links are not an end in themselves, she says. “To seek interconnectivity between African countries simply to have links isn’t necessarily going to promote development. If knowledge creation in Africa is about solving problems, then the important links are the ones that will help countries access or produce solutions to concrete problems.”

Regional research hubs, built to address common problems, could be the best strategy for achieving this.

Building on momentum

Of course, the Thomson Reuters study does not provide a complete picture. It is limited to an analysis of internationally indexed journal articles and so excludes much — perhaps the majority — of African science, which more frequently appears in local journals (see also Raise the profile of research in local journals).

But whether the links are purely regional or not, it is clear from last month’s report that African researchers are beginning to work together more widely.

Efforts to boost science on the continent must capitalise on this momentum. Capacity building should not only stimulate the potential of scientists and their institutions to carry out research, but also promote the networks and linkages that are essential if Africa is to build its own knowledge societies.

The author of this piece is an Internet Entrepreneur. I started in [...]]]>

Search the web and its difficult to find information on this subject. One names keeps coming up and that is Mark Shuttleworth. However, we believe there are many more, less well know,entrepreneurs, innovating. We would like to hear from you with your story.

The author of this piece is an Internet Entrepreneur. I started in 1999 with one of my first websites, e-trade afrika. Presently, I owe 45 domains and have about 10 of these in active service. I was the first to start a private funded network for doctors in Africa.

I have also provided courses, on behalf of the IFC and African Management Services to entrepreneurs and business leaders in West Africa. I would like to hear and publish your own story.

Francis Stevens George

http://www.kizukigroup.com

The University of Ghana, supported by the Philadelphia-based JRS Biodiversity Foundation, is pioneering the use of DNA “barcodes” to map menacing mosquito [...]]]>

New biotechnologies that allow scientists to quickly and accurately distinguish species based on a simple DNA analysis are being creatively deployed for the first time in the war against a major global disease.

The University of Ghana, supported by the Philadelphia-based JRS Biodiversity Foundation, is pioneering the use of DNA “barcodes” to map menacing mosquito species in West Africa that spread lymphatic filariasis (LF), commonly known as elephantiasis. Using a short DNA sequence from a particular genome region, scientists can obtain a species’ ‘barcode’ identity. Barcodes are needed because closely-related species, with different capabilities to transmit LF, are otherwise hard to distinguish.

The ability to precisely identify mosquito species in this way is a promising advance in the battle against LF, an often disfiguring disease that today threatens 1 billion people across roughly 80 countries. Over 120 million people have the parasitic infection and more than 40 million have been permanently disabled or disfigured.

The research is identifying species spreading the worm larvae that clog the human lymph system, often causing grotesque swelling. By revealing the menace species’ habitat and range, it also aids understanding of environmental factors that influence their breeding and abundance.

“The scientific breakthrough of DNA barcoding, which grew explosively from a single Canadian research paper in 2003, is shedding new light on LF – a horrific and entirely preventable health scourge in developing countries,” says principal investigator Prof. Daniel Boakye of the University of Ghana.

“Beyond the immediate battle against this disease in West Africa, the value to human health of these important new tools will grow as the range and habitats of specific mosquito species shift due to climate change.”

LF is a leading cause of permanent and long-term disability worldwide and results from a microscopic, thread-like worm spread between humans through a mosquito’s bite. Living within a human’s blood, the worm larvae grow into adults which mate and produce other larvae, called microfilariae. Symptoms often appear years after infection. The disease can permanently damage the lymph system and kidneys, which results in fluid collecting and swelling in the arms, breasts, legs, and, for men, the genital area. The disease also makes it difficult for the body to fight germs and infections.

Poor sanitation and rapid growth in tropical and subtropical areas has created more places for mosquitoes to breed and thus to more LF infection.

World health authorities have earmarked the disease for eradication by 2020 through mass drug administration (MDA). Officials are identifying communities where LF is endemic and treating people at risk with annual doses of a combination drug therapy (albendazole / DEC or albendazole / ivermectin, freely donated by Merck and Co. and GSK respectively).

The drug reduces the density of worm larvae in humans. This LF elimination strategy relies on a belief that the region’s main LF vector, the Anopheles mosquito, is incapable of transmitting low-density worm larvae.

But the Anopheles family is highly diverse and contains hundreds of species. And the new molecular studies reveal that not all Anopheles species are created equal. Some can transmit the disease despite the drugs’ thinning of the worm larvae.

The research is pointing out places infested with the menace species and, therefore, where the drug strategy needs to be supplemented with insecticides to successfully eliminate LF.

Prof. Boakye also notes that blanket vector control using insecticides can have serious impact on non-target organisms, leading to biodiversity loss. The additional information and insights into specific mosquito species allows for those species and areas to be targeted, reducing the level of spraying and its effect on other organisms.

“The expertise to create databases is in short supply in Africa; the JRS Foundation is assisting science in very meaningful ways,” he says.

The ground-breaking work of the Ghana-based institute is one of 17 JRS-supported projects to be showcased at the e-Biosphere 09 Conference in London June 1-3 (www.e-biosphere09.org), hosted by the Natural History Museum. Co-sponsored by the Encyclopedia of Life and 12 other leading institutions, the event is an exposition of the latest biology-related informatics tools and technologies, as well as their potential linkages and applications.

JRS Board President James L. Edwards, Executive Director of the Encyclopedia of Life, based at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, says biodiversity information is often compiled for diverse purposes and stored in unique databases using different formats, making the task of effectively using it cumbersome and time-consuming.

The JRS Foundation works to aggregate, digitize, synthesize and make easily available important biodiversity information from developing countries that is often inaccessible to potential users, including conservation managers, policy makers and the public.

“Earth’s plant and animal species are declining at an alarming rate. An estimated 50,000 species disappear every year, mostly due to human impacts – population growth, industrial development, pollution and climate change,” says Dr. Edwards.

“Efforts to stabilize and reverse this trend are hampered by biodiversity knowledge banks that are incomplete, fragmented and not easily accessible to those who need them to set environmental priorities or create informed policies and decisions. In addition, biodiversity databases often cannot share information with each other due to incompatible formats.”

“Though endowed only in 2004, the JRS Foundation has already established itself as an important partner of developing-country scientists and organizations working in the new, rapidly growing field of biodiversity informatics,” says Dr. Edwards.

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