Cloud Hosting

News Release

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

New program will establish data science research and training network across the continent.

The National Institutes of Health is investing about $74.5 million over five years to advance data science, catalyze innovation and spur health discoveries across Africa. Under its new Harnessing Data Science for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa (DS-I Africa) program, the NIH is issuing 19 awards to support research and training activities. DS-I Africa is an NIH Common Fund program that is supported by the Office of the Director and 11 NIH Institutes, Centers and Offices.

Awards will establish a consortium consisting of a data science platform and coordinating center, seven research hubs, seven data science research training programs and four projects focused on studying the ethical, legal and social implications of data science research. Awardees have a robust network of partnerships across the African continent and in the United States, including numerous national health ministries, nongovernmental organizations, corporations, and other academic institutions.

This initiative has generated tremendous enthusiasm in all sectors of Africas biomedical research community, said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. Big data and artificial intelligence have the potential to transform the conduct of research across the continent, while investing in research training will help to support Africas future data science leaders and ensure sustainable progress in this promising field.

The University of Cape Town (UCT) will develop and manage the initiatives open data science platform and coordinating center, building on previous NIH investments in UCTs data and informatics capabilities made through the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) program. UCT will provide a flexible, scalable platform for the DS-I Africa researchers, so they can find and access data, select tools and workflows, and run analyses through collaborative workspaces. UCT will also administer and support core resources, as well as coordinate consortium activities.

The research hubs, all of which are led by African institutions, will apply novel approaches to data analysis and AI to address critical health issues including:

The research training programs, which leverage partnerships with U.S. institutions, will create multi-tiered curricula to build skills in foundational health data science, with options ranging from masters and doctoral degree tracks, to postdoctoral training and faculty development. A mix of in-person and remote training will be offered to build skills in multi-disciplinary topics such as applied mathematics, biostatistics, epidemiology, clinical informatics, analytics, computational omics, biomedical imaging, machine intelligence, computational paradigms, computer science and engineering. Trainees will receive intensive mentoring and participate in practical internships to learn how to apply data science concepts to medical and public health areas including the social determinants of health, climate change, food systems, infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases, health surveillance, injuries, pediatrics and parasitology.

Recognizing that data science research may uncover potential ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI), the consortium will include dedicated ELSI research addressing these topics. This will include efforts to develop evidence-based, context specific guidance for the conduct and governance of data science initiatives; evaluate current legal instruments and guidelines to develop new and innovative governance frameworks to support data science health research in Africa; explore legal differences across regions of the continent in the use of data science for health discovery and innovation; and investigate public perceptions and attitudes regarding the use of data science approaches for healthcare along with the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholder groups regarding intellectual property, patents, and commercial use of genomics data in health. In addition, the ELSI research teams will be embedded in the research hubs to provide important and timely guidance.

A second phase of the program is being planned to encourage more researchers to join the consortium, foster the formation of new partnerships and address additional capacity building needs. Through the combined efforts of all its initiatives, DS-I Africa is intended to use data science to develop solutions to the continents most pressing public health problems through a robust ecosystem of new partners from academic, government and private sectors.

In addition to the Common Fund (CF), the DS-I Africa awards are being supported by the Fogarty International Center (FIC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS). The initiative is being led by the CF, FIC, NIBIB, NIMH and NLM.

More information is available at https://commonfund.nih.gov/AfricaData.

Photos depicting data science activities at awardee institutions are available for downloading at https://commonfund.nih.gov/africadata/images.

About the NIH Common Fund: The NIH Common Fund encourages collaboration and supports a series of exceptionally high-impact, trans-NIH programs. Common Fund programs are managed by the Office of Strategic Coordination in the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives in the NIH Office of the Director in partnership with the NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices. More information is available at the Common Fund website:https://commonfund.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIHTurning Discovery Into Health

###

Continue reading here:

NIH awards nearly $75M to catalyze data science research in Africa - National Institutes of Health