School of Medicine Publications and Presentations

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-31-2024

Abstract

Neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease and AD‐related dementias (AD/ADRD), pose significant challenges to health care systems globally, particularly in Africa. With the advances in medical technology and research capabilities, especially in next‐generation sequencing and imaging, vast amounts of data have been generated from AD/ADRD research. Given that the greatest increase in AD/ADRD prevalence is expected to occur in Africa, it is critical to establish comprehensive bioinformatics training programs to help African scientists leverage existing data and collect additional information to untangle AD/ADRD heterogeneity in African populations. The South Texas Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, with efforts from the National Institutes of Health and the Global Brain Health Institute, has partnered with the Brain Research Africa Initiative to develop the African Initiative on Bioinformatics Online Training in Neurodegenerative Disease (AI‐BOND). AI‐BOND is a comprehensive and accessible training program, the aim of which is to advance biostatistics and bioinformatics expertise in Africa in studying neurodegenerative diseases. This expertise is essential to enable African scientists to utilize the extensive AD/ADRD data and enhance the continent's ability to contribute to global research efforts in this field. The training addresses the gap in analyzing neurodegenerative disease data by providing skills and knowledge in genetic epidemiology, biostatistics, and bioinformatics to African students and researchers. This innovative online training program will last 6 months and provide training in skill sets R, SAS, and Python programing, genome‐wide association studies, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, microbiome analysis, and advanced statistical methods. Additional training will include study design and manuscript and grant writing. The first cohort of the AI‐BOND program will graduate in June 2024. The AI‐BOND program is expected to build research computational capacities in Africa that will improve the ability of graduates to conduct and utilize large‐scale studies, with the goal of curbing the growing incidence of neurodegenerative diseases in Africa.

Comments

© 2024 The Author(s). Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Alzheimer's Association.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Publication Title

Alzheimer's & Dementia

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1002/trc2.70002

Academic Level

faculty

Mentor/PI Department

Neuroscience

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.