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6th DS-I Africa Consortium Meeting

  • Plenary Session: Data Science for Early Detection, Risk Prediction & Improved Disease Diagnosis [Session 2]

    Facilitator(s)

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    Prof Amina Abubakar

    UtiliZing health Information for Meaningful impact in East Africa through Data Science

    Prof Amina Abubakar is a Kenyan research psychologist with over 20 years of research experience. She is a Professor and the Director of the Institute for Human Development, Aga Khan University. Her interests are in both acquired and congenital brain disorders, with some of her most significant contributions including the development of open-access assessment tools and the description of the neurocognitive and mental health outcomes associated with various health conditions. She is also passionate about women's empowerment and has received a grant to train and empower more women scientists in neuroscience and brain health research.

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    Prof Anthony Ngugi

    UtiliZing health Information for Meaningful impact in East Africa through Data Science

    Anthony Ngugi is a Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, Chair of the Department of Population Health and Associate Dean for Research at the Medical College, Aga Khan University-East Africa. His work spans healthy ageing in low- and middle-income countries, epidemiology of epilepsy, community health information systems, climate and health and data science applications in population health. He is MPI of the NIH-funded Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK), African Climate-Care Nexus Research Hub and Kenya Co-PI of the MRC-funded AFRICA-FINGERS Project on healthy brain ageing in Sub-Saharan Africa among others. As architect and PI of the Kaloleni-Rabai Health and Demographic Surveillance System - a 100,000-plus community and MoH embedded data resource and population cohort - he advances local health systems through data-driven solutions. He additionally trains and mentors students and early career researchers in research methods and grantsmanship.

    Speakers

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    Dr Aminkeng Leke

    AI-Enhanced Neonatal Cardiac View Extraction for Remote CHD

    Artificial Intelligence assisted echocardiography to facilitate optimal image extraction for congenital heart defects diagnosis in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Dr. Leke Aminkeng is an accomplished pharmacoepidemiologist with a master's in chemical pathology and a PhD in pharmacoepidemiology. With over 17 years of expertise, he has led drug safety research across Europe, Africa, and North America, partnering with organizations such as Ulster University, EUROCAT, and the WHO. He previously served as Deputy Vice Chancellor at Biaka University in Cameroon and has been honored with numerous accolades, including the 2022 James Wilson Publication Award for birth defects research and the 2021 Commonwealth Digital Health Award for his development of the Global Birth Defects App. He is a FAIMER fellow and co-founder of several initiatives, including the Sub-Saharan African Congenital Anomaly Network (sSCAN), the Cameroon NCD Alliance, and the Health Research Foundation (HRF) Cameroon. He currently spearheads innovative projects at the HRF-Digital Innovation Hub, including the StarMum pregnancy app, the Cameroon Registry of Congenital Anomalies Surveillance (CARECAS), and the DSI-Africa CHD AI project. His contributions in rural diabetes management, maternal and child health, and digital health innovation have garnered international recognition, reflecting his dedication to advancing global health through research and technology.

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    Dr Nadja Louw

    From data to diagnosis - Advancing discovery for developmental disorders in Africa

    Advancing discovery for developmental disorders - expanded analysis of the DDD-Africa resource

    Dr Nadja Louw is currently a Post-doctoral Research Fellow for Deciphering Developmental Disorders in Africa (DDD-Africa) project at the South African Medical Research Council and affiliated with the University of the Witwatersrand. Here she leads and contribute to scientific publications, conference presentations, and produce new grant funding applications. She also contributes to the final curated project dataset (clinical and genomic dataset) and workflows using her knowledge of Next Generation Sequencing data analysis and variant interpretation. Her PhD project was focused on identifying copy number variants (CNVs) in South African patients with developmental disorders. She has developed a bioinformatic CNV analysis pipeline for the DDD-Africa project which is being refined and incorporated into the main variant analysis pipeline. Diagnosing children with developmental disorders is her main focus at present using new and improved technologies and techniques ensuring additional diagnoses for already recruited families.

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    A/Prof Ananyo Choudhury

    The Moving Lipidome: Drivers of Lipid Trait Dynamics in a South African Longitudinal Cohort

    Integrated modeLs for Early Risk-prediction in Africa (ILERA) study

    Ananyo Choudhury is a Reader at the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. His research focus is to develop a better understanding of the African genetic diversity, population history and how these impact complex traits. Over the last decade he has contributed to several major genomic initiatives, including the African Genome Variation Project, the H3Africa genotyping array design, the Southern African Human Genome Program, and the H3Africa Whole Genome Sequence Study. He currently leads the AGenDA and GAIN - two major pan-African genomic studies . He obtained his basic training in Zoology from the University of Kalyani and a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of Calcutta, India.

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    Prof Jelili Oyelade

    GCAP: Genome-wide characterization of complex variants and their phenotypic effects in African populations

    Genome-wide characterization of complex variants and their phenotypic effects in African populations

    Prof. Jelili O. Oyelade is a Professor of Computer Science and Bioinformatics, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria. A post-doctoral Fellow at Jena State University Hospital, Jena, Germany. He is a leader of the Covenant University Bioinformatics Research Cluster (CUBRe) and Academic Program Coordinator under the Covenant Applied Informatics and Communication Africa Centre of Excellence (CApIC ACE (https://ace.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/) is funded by the World Bank, Covenant University. He was a resource person for H3Abionet, Bioinformatics Training workshop, Covenant University, Nigeria, April 26 - May 21, 2014

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    Prof Mansoor Saleh

    Leveraging artificial intelligence/machine learning-based technology to overcome specialized training and technology barriers for the diagnosis and prognostication of colorectal cancer in Africa

    Leveraging artificial intelligence/machine learning-based technology to overcome specialized training and technology barriers for the diagnosis and prognostication of colorectal cancer in Africa

    Dr Saleh is the Founding Chair in the Department of Hematology and Oncology and the Founding Director of the Cancer Centre at the Aga Khan University Nairobi. He received his medical degree from University of Heidelberg in Germany and conducted his doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. From there, Dr Saleh completed his clinical and translational research training in Hematology and Oncology at the University of Alabama Comprehensive Cancer Centre where he was a tenured Professor of Medicine and Pathology and Director of the First-in-Human Early Drug Development Programme. His area of research and clinical focus is targeted therapy of cancer.

    Rapporteur(s)

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    Dr Eileen Weinheimer-Haus

    UtiliZing health Information for Meaningful impact in East Africa through Data Science

    Eileen Weinheimer-Haus is a Senior Project Manager in the Department of Learning Health Sciences. She has been a project manager with Akbar K. Waljee, MD, MSc for the past several years and is involved in the development and execution of programs and projects related to using Big Data and novel machine-learning analytical tools to guide precision and population health, with a particular focus on resource-constrained settings. Eileen currently serves as the U-M Program Management lead for UtiliZing health Information for Meaningful impact in East Africa through Data Science (UZIMA-DS), an NIH U54 Research Hub which Dr. Waljee Co-Leads with the Aga Khan University in Nairobi, Kenya. She also works closely with Dr. Waljee on several projects in the VA Center for Clinical Management Research. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, she spent time in academia and industry in the areas of nutrition, exercise, metabolism, and aging. These experiences fostered proficiencies in project management in health-related fields, include experimental design and study execution, management of large studies and data sets, and scientific writing. Eileen holds a PhD in Nutrition Science, a MS in Exercise Physiology, and is Registered Dietitian Nutritionist.

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    Mr Alfred Githuka

    Leveraging artificial intelligence/machine learning-based technology to overcome specialized training and technology barriers for the diagnosis and prognostication of colorectal cancer in Africa

    Alfred Githuka is a Project Manager with a data science focus, contributing to an NIH-funded U01 study on colorectal cancer (CRC) that integrates artificial intelligence into digital pathology workflows at Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi. He supports the coordination of data-driven research activities and the development and validation of machine learning models for cancer detection, working in close collaboration with the University of Michigan. His role sits at the intersection of clinical research and data science, with a focus on applying computational approaches to improve diagnostic accuracy and cancer outcomes in low-resource settings.