Computational Biology and Bioinformatics in Nigeria

Over the past few decades, major advances in the field of molecular biology, coupled with advances in genomic technologies, have led to an explosive growth in the biological data generated by the scientific community. The critical need to process and analyze such a deluge of data and turn it into useful knowledge has caused bioinformatics to gain prominence and importance. Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary research area that applies techniques, methodologies, and tools in computer and information science to solve biological problems. In Nigeria, bioinformatics has recently played a vital role in the advancement of biological sciences. As a developing country, the importance of bioinformatics is rapidly gaining acceptance, and bioinformatics groups comprised of biologists, computer scientists, and computer engineers are being constituted at Nigerian universities and research institutes. In this article, we present an overview of bioinformatics education and research in Nigeria. We also discuss professional societies and academic and research institutions that play central roles in advancing the discipline in Nigeria. Finally, we propose strategies that can bolster bioinformatics education and support from policy makers in Nigeria, with potential positive implications for other developing countries. © 2014 Fatumo et al.SAF was supported by H3ABioNet NABDA Node, Abuja, Nigeria with NIH Common Fund Award/NHGRI Grant Number U41HG006941 and Genetic Epidemiology Group at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.Published versio

BengaSaVex: A new computational genetic sequence extraction tool for DNA repeats

The scourge of infectious diseases is one of the problems contending with humanity. All infectious diseases are caused by pathogens. A major problem in biological research is the creation of enormous and redundant amounts of genomic data. From this large volume of generated data, biologists select a subset of each sequence known as DNA nucleotide subsequences “words”, for extended scientific analysis. Computational biology aids this pruning process by providing computerized tools to generate vital information with biological significance from these data. This research aimed to develop new tools for extracting DNA repeats from the gene sequences and also to perform a comparative analysis with existing tools having similar or closely-related functions. We were able to develop BengaSaVex (GBenga Samuel Victor genetic sequence extraction tool) and provide a sequential in-silico genetic-sequence-filtering functionality to identify repeated DNA nucleotide subsequences within the genes of some microorganisms, evaluated the potential benefits and applications of identifying such repeated sequences, and finally, performed an in-silico comparative analysis between BengaSaVex and tandem repeat finder. Keywords: BengaSaVex, DNA, repetitive sequence, in-silico analysis, computational genomics.African Journal of Biotechnology, Vol 13(21) 2103-211

Development of a medical staff recruitment system for teaching hospitals in Nigeria

Recruitment of staff into teaching hospitals in Nigeria, acts as the first step towards creating competitive strength and strategic advantage for such institutions. However, one of the major problems associated with these institutions in the South Western part of Nigeria is their mode of staff recruitment. In this research paper, we developed a suitable staff recruitment system for some health institutions in Nigeria, focusing specifically on some teaching hospitals. Three teaching hospitals in south west Nigeria, were visited and relevant information was collated through personal interviews and questionnaires administration to the staff of Human Resource Departments and other relevant health professionals of these teaching hospitals. The design and development of the system employs 3-tier web architecture. System design of the staff recruitment system consisted of design activities that produce system specifications satisfying the functional requirements that were developed in the system analysis process. A formal model of the staff recruitment system was built using Unified Modeling Language (UML). The UML, as a modeling system, which provides a set of conventions that were used to describe the software system in terms of objects, offers diagrams that provide different perspective views of the system parts. The Web-based Medical Recruitment System (WBMRS) was designed to be user friendly and it is easy to navigate.Keywords: Staff recruitment system, teaching hospitals, health institutions, NigeriaInternational Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences, 6(1): 116-124, 201