South African to advise African disease centre on genomics data

Alan Christoffels says role will integrate pathogen genomics with health policy

In this part-time role, Christoffels will assist the Africa CDC to develop and evaluate a pan-African strategy for the centre’s Institute for Pathogen Genomics.

Christoffels told Research Professional News that there’s been recent efforts to strengthen laboratory capacity on the continent to generate genetic data for pathogens, in particular SARS-CoV-2. However, he said, a parallel process is needed to build the infrastructure to manage the resulting data.