Bridging the gap in African biodiversity genomics and bioinformatics:Open Institute of the African BioGenome Project:

The Open Institute of the African BioGenome Project empowers African scientists and institutions with the skill sets, capacity and infrastructure to advance scientific knowledge and innovation and drive economic growth

Open Institute of the African BioGenome Project: Bridging the gap in African biodiversity genomics and bioinformatics

Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion people, had 326 researchers per one million people in 2018 (Schneegans, 2021; UNESCO, 2022), despite the global average for the number of researchers per million people being 1368 (Schneegans, 2021; UNESCO, 2022). Nevertheless, a strong research community is a requirement to advance scientific knowledge and innovation and drive economic growth (Agnew, et al., 2020; Sianes, et al., 2022). This low number of researchers extends to scientific research across Africa and finds resonance with genomic projects such as the African BioGenome Project (Ebenezer, et al., 2022). The African BioGenome project (AfricaBP) plans to sequence 100,000 endemic African species in 10 years (Ebenezer, et al., 2022) with an estimated 203,000 gigabases of DNA sequence. AfricaBP aims to generate these genomes on-the-ground in Africa. However, for AfricaBP to achieve its goals of on-the-ground sequencing and data analysis, there is a need to empower African scientists and institutions to obtain the required skill sets, capacity and infrastructure to generate, analyse, and utilise these sequenced genomes in-country. The Open Institute is the genomics and bioinformatics knowledge exchange programme for the AfricaBP (Figures 1 & 2). It consists of 10 participating institutions including the University of South Africa in South Africa and National Institute of Agricultural Research in Morocco. It aims to: develop biodiversity genomics and bioinformatics curricula targeted at African scientists, promote and develop genomics and bioinformatics tools that will address critical needs relevant to the African terrain such as limited internet access, and advance grassroot knowledge exchange through outreach and public engagement such as quarterly training and workshops

The nature fit concept of waste reduction: Prospects for engineering a clean future

Environmental pollution due to waste substances is an urgent problem around the world. As human population and the consumption of manufactured goods continue to increase, it is inevitable that large quantities of waste substances would simultaneously persist indiscriminately in aquatic and terrestrial environments, if natural solutions are not urgently sought. Worse still, an estimated two billion tonnes of wastes generated by humans annually constitute a huge burden on earth’s ecosystem health and the taxpayers beleaguered with the maintenance of clean environments. Given this challenge, the purpose of this review is to introduce the “nature fit” concept of waste reduction (NFWR) to develop new unified waste estimation methods along principal waste generation cardinals of the waste chain, termed “EPCD”. This novel approach galvanizes for the inculcation of nature-based solutions and green innovations adapted to the NFWR-EPCD cardinal system estimations of waste generation into existing waste management practices. This is necessary to salvage human and environmental health, and ensure better waste governance across the world