SAMRC partners with global healthcare companies for research on genetic diversity in Africa

Cape Town | When it comes to international collaborative research, the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) is blazing a trail of excellence within the public health research landscape in Africa. In 2019, the SAMRC was successful in its application to facilitate the administration of a project jointly funded by global pharmaceutical healthcare companies, GSK and Novartis, that supports the conduct of high-quality research on genetic diversity in Africa.

The partnership will see the SAMRC, through its Grants, Innovation and Product Development (GIPD) platform, facilitating the administration of Project Africa GRADIENT. GRADIENT, short for Genomic Research Approach for Diversity and Optimising Therapeutics, was initiated in 2018 as a collaboration between GSK and Novartis. Its primary aim is to establish a consortium to collaborate with expert academic centers and organisations in Africa to support high quality research on African genetic diversity of relevance to drug therapeutics.

Effectively, the primary focus of Project Africa GRADIENT will be to evaluate genetic diversity as the contributing factor to the way patients on the African continent respond to drugs used to treat malaria and tuberculosis (TB).

According Prof Glenda Gray, SAMRC President and CEO it is exciting to see more and more global partners taking interest in the challenges of Africa. “We are delighted that partners are now seeking to address the challenges of Africa by their quest to understand the fundamental differences between genetics of Africa and the rest of the world”, she said. 

She further adds that this move builds on to the already existing partnership with GSK and Novartis nurtured over the years. “In 2017, the SAMRC together with the then Department of Science and Technology (DST) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Novartis which amongst others sought to build scientific capability and potentially lead to breakthrough innovations in South Africa” added Gray.

Also, in 2014 as part of its Africa NCD Open Lab initiative, GSK collaborated with the SAMRC and the UK MRC to tackle non-communicable diseases in Africa.

Gray also says not only is this partnership in line with the strategic goals of the SAMRC of becoming a globally competitive and locally responsive research organisation, but it also demonstrates the need for greater collaboration. “As a collaborative organisation in nature, we have always encouraged partnerships and collaborations that are designed to improve the health and quality of the lives of the people of South Africa and the broader African continent.

The Request for Application (RFA) for Project Africa GRADIENT was launched on 18 January 2021.

NOTE TO THE EDITOR:

Applications for funding
The Request for Applications (RFAs) are open, proposals from researchers based at African (North, West, East, Central, and Southern Africa) universities, science councils and other public research organisations, will be welcome.

For the first phase, priority will be given to proposals collating new and available genetic data regarding drug response to Malaria and TB treatments by populations of Africa using existing databases, biorepositories or any other data in the public domain among others. Data could contribute to the building of an Africa Genetic database

About GIPD
The Grants, Innovation and Product Development (GIPD) unit manages external grant funding and innovation activities within the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC).  These activities are managed through a number of business units, platforms and programmes. 

GSK Press Release | Read more

Novartis Press Release | Read more