Professor Abdoulaye Djimde
Country (Nationality)
Mali
Grantee Title
Developing Excellence in Leadership and Genetic Training for Malaria Elimination in Sub-Saharan Africa (DELGEME)
Grantee Description
Professor Abdoulaye Djimde from the University of Science, Techniques and Technologies in Bamako, Mali, leads DELGEME, which is training graduates, doctoral fellows and postdoctoral fellows in the genomics and bioinformatics of malaria.
He is also working to develop ways of enhancing the understanding and sharing of relevant genetic data with intervention and eradication programmes. Understanding the genetics of malaria parasites and tracking malaria parasite migration and drug resistance are two key ways in which scientists can begin to develop new malaria drugs and vaccines and make progress with elimination programmes.
An Associate Professor of Parasitology and Mycology, Professor Djimde is a highly accomplished malaria scientist and is the programme coordinator of the West African Network for Clinical Trials of Antimalarial Drugs.
The research institutes that he is working with are the strongest African-based partners in the discipline of malaria genetic data and represent a large part of the total malaria genomic capacity in Africa.
The programme has a strong scientific focus on this issue and benefits from multiple African and international collaborations to provide access to training and research facilities.
Mali is to lead sub-Saharan Africa in becoming a bioinformatics hub for university-based research, vastly increasing the region’s ability to drive forward this vital research.
To do this, significant expertise is needed to capture and analyse genome data from across malaria-endemic countries. The Developing Excellence in Leadership and Genetic Training scheme will develop a training programme for African scientists in these countries to ensure a strong knowledge base and to support this new capacity.