This week on the Nature Careers podcast: Science in Africa – a continent on the cusp of change
Ifeyinwa Aniebo, a molecular geneticist from Nigeria, outlines three things that would deliver lasting change to science in Africa.Early career researchers in Africa are starting to reap the benefits of increased investment in science and a growth in the number of research collaborations and partnerships, says Ifeyinwa Aniebo, a molecular geneticist who researches malaria drug resistance in Nigeria.
In this first episode, we meet Dr Ifeyinwa Aniebo. She’s a molecular geneticist, an infectious disease expert currently working in the field on the malaria drug resistance projects. We probably all know, Africa shoulders, what 25% of the global disease burden, We unfortunately only just contribute about 2% of the world research output, which is quite abysmal. We only account for like 1.3% of research spending. And we only produce 0.1% of all patents. So as you can see, in terms of that funding, and the output, it's really poor.
Another issue, the second one, would be the infrastructure problem, right? So building infrastructure is important, because when we are training young doctors, young PhDs, young postdocs, you want to retain them, because if you don't retain them, they're gonna go. But most importantly, electricity. You can't do any scientific experiment if you do not have constant electricity.If the light goes off right in the middle of the experiment, and I don't really know what, that's inconclusive. So that's an important part.
Okay, so I would say that it's easier now to become a scientist. And the reason I'm saying this is because over the past couple of years, you know, there has been investment, you know, We've seen, you know, a lot of money being put into institutions to train the next generation of scientists. So I think it's a little bit easier, because you have, you know, a little bit of funding. You have more opportunities, you've got more access. But it's still very difficult.
But luckily, I had a really….my father was such a lovely man, but he literally engaged me in all my questions. He might not even have had the answers, but he would get his friend to where, you know, physicians, to really answer me.And so that kind of sparked my interest. So my interest is a bit different, because I obviously started getting interested, because, one, I was curious. And two, because I had the personal, you know, tragedy that kind of got me into that.
I used to read a lot of comics. I was a comic geek, and so he basically explained to you me and said “You know how the X-Men have abilities that make them, you know, adapt better, and just evolve to be better superhumans? That's basically what happens with the parasites. So rather than the parasite getting killed by the chloroquine that your friend was given, it didn't get killed. It just kept multiplying in the blood system until, unfortunately, it took a life.
And so I applied to study genetics, at University of London. Queen Mary, University of London. And during my university in London, I was very obsessed about a bacterial bacterial genome which affects people, it causes sepsis. And so that was basically my project. But I also think that, for example, when you look at a country like South Africa, there's been a lot of, you know, investment in the private sector. Investments in, like, biotechnology, right?And I really think that that's beginning to spread across Africa. So you have Nigeria, you have some startups as well, in the biotech space, you have some in Kenya, you have some in Ghana, as well.
Because, again, funding is amazing. But when the funding comes from outside, it's not very sustainable. You’re gonna keep going from one, you know, funder to another. We're looking at cancer diagnostics, and young people doing that. We've got a biotech company in Lagos, which also does, tries to collect human genome so that we are being represented in the world. So there's so many things that are happening.
You know, you have women who take time out for pregnancy, maternity leave, breastfeeding, you know. A lot of women in Africa do, obviously, a higher share of the childcare and domestic duties. So by the time your university is asking you, “Are you going to get married? Why do you want to do a PhD? No man's gonna marry you if you do a PhD?” Yeah, I've had that. People have said to me, “Why am I even doing it? Why are you studying for a PhD? Aren't you gonna scare a man off if you're so educated?”And so some women, you know, like myself, will obviously do what we want, based on what we are passionate about. We're not very common.
If you're providing training for a particular skill….imagine someone wants to go to Kenya for bioinformatics training, yeah, and she was a woman who had a baby? It's the Wellcome Trust, actually. A really amazing institution in the UK. They actually prioritize. They tell you that you're not going to be penalized if you're taking two years out. “Just tell us what you've been doing for two years. If you've been a mum, it's okay.”
And so I think also just putting these things in their faces to say, you know, you can actually be, you know, a scientist, you can be a physicist, you can do this and that, you know. Creating that mentor-mentee relationship would actually help with the problem of the dearth of young people, women, young women getting into the sciences.Yeah.
So I think that, yes, it's a better place, because you're getting more, you know, mentorship, more training, you know, and you're getting access to these things. And the purpose to empower them in science, encourage them to stay in science, and also permit their career development within the sciences, whilst creating opportunities to influence, you know, economic, ecological and health changes in the country.
And what we see is that it's beginning to…it really affects their lives. So for example, last year, we had about five, five of our mentees had fully funded places at university, PhD places fully funded. That they actually got money to go to school. And a lot of them didn't think that they could ever achieve that.
So it's important that this training and mentorship is accessible for them. I also would say that collaborations also help.
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