Thomas K. Karikari

Bioinformatics in Africa: The Rise of Ghana?

Until recently, bioinformatics, an important discipline in the biological sciences, was largely limited to countries with advanced scientific resources. Nonetheless, several developing countries have lately been making progress in bioinformatics training and applications. In Africa, leading countries in the discipline include South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya. However, one country that is less known when it comes to bioinformatics is Ghana. Here, I provide a first description of the development of bioinformatics activities in Ghana and how these activities contribute to the overall development of the discipline in Africa. Over the past decade, scientists in Ghana have been involved in publications incorporating bioinformatics analyses, aimed at addressing research questions in biomedical science and agriculture. Scarce research funding and inadequate training opportunities are some of the challenges that need to be addressed for Ghanaian scientists to continue developing their expertise in bioinformatics.

Building sustainable neuroscience capacity in Africa : the role of non-profit organisations

While advances in neuroscience are helping to improve many aspects of human life, inequalities exist in this field between Africa and more scientifically-advanced continents. Many African countries lack the infrastructure and appropriately-trained scientists for neuroscience education and research. Addressing these challenges would require the development of innovative approaches to help improve scientific competence for neuroscience across the continent. In recent years, science-based non-profit organisations (NPOs) have been supporting the African neuroscience community to build state-of-the-art scientific capacity for sustainable education and research. Some of these contributions have included: the establishment of training courses and workshops to introduce African scientists to powerful-yet-cost-effective experimental model systems; research infrastructural support and assistance to establish research institutes. Other contributions have come in the form of the promotion of scientific networking, public engagement and advocacy for improved neuroscience funding. Here, we discuss the contributions of NPOs to the development of neuroscience in Africa.

Motor Neuron Diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Need for More Population-Based Studies

Motor neuron diseases (MNDs) are devastating neurological diseases that are characterised by gradual degeneration and death of motor neurons. Major types of MNDs include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). These diseases are incurable, with limited disease-modifying treatment options. In order to improve MND-based biomedical research, drug development, and clinical care, population-based studies will be important. These studies, especially among less-studied populations, might identify novel factors controlling disease susceptibility and resistance. To evaluate progress in MND research in Africa, we examined the published literature on MNDs in Sub-Saharan Africa to identify disease prevalence, genetic factors, and other risk factors. Our findings indicate that the amount of research evidence on MNDs in Sub-Saharan Africa is scanty; molecular and genetics-based studies are particularly lacking. While only a few genetic studies were identified, these studies strongly suggest that there appear to be population-specific causes of MNDs among Africans. MND genetic underpinnings vary among different African populations and also between African and non-African populations. Further studies, especially molecular, genetic and genomic studies, will be required to advance our understanding of MND biology among African populations. Insights from these studies would help to improve the timeliness and accuracy of clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Developing expertise in bioinformatics for biomedical research in Africa.

Research in bioinformatics has a central role in helping to advance biomedical research. However, its introduction to Africa has been met with some challenges (such as inadequate infrastructure, training opportunities, research funding, human resources, biorepositories and databases) that have contributed to the slow pace of development in this field across the continent. Fortunately, recent improvements in areas such as research funding, infrastructural support and capacity building are helping to develop bioinformatics into an important discipline in Africa. These contributions are leading to the establishment of world-class research facilities, biorepositories, training programmes, scientific networks and funding schemes to improve studies into disease and health in Africa. With increased contribution from all stakeholders, these developments could be further enhanced. Here, we discuss how the recent developments are contributing to the advancement of bioinformatics in Africa.

Social Factors Influencing Child Health in Ghana

Objectives Social factors have profound effects on health. Children are especially vulnerable to social influences, particularly in their early years. Adverse social exposures in childhood can lead to chronic disorders later in life. Here, we sought to identify and evaluate the impact of social factors on child health in Ghana. As Ghana is unlikely to achieve the Millennium Development Goals’ target of reducing child mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, we deemed it necessary to identify social determinants that might have contributed to the non-realisation of this goal. Methods ScienceDirect, PubMed, MEDLINE via EBSCO and Google Scholar were searched for published articles reporting on the influence of social factors on child health in Ghana. After screening the 98 articles identified, 34 of them that met our inclusion criteria were selected for qualitative review. Results Major social factors influencing child health in the country include maternal education, rural-urban disparities (place of residence), family income (wealth/poverty) and high dependency (multiparousity). These factors are associated with child mortality, nutritional status of children, completion of immunisation programmes, health-seeking behaviour and hygiene practices. Conclusions Several social factors influence child health outcomes in Ghana. Developing more effective responses to these social determinants would require sustainable efforts from all stakeholders including the Government, healthcare providers and families. We recommend the development of interventions that would support families through direct social support initiatives aimed at alleviating poverty and inequality, and indirect approaches targeted at eliminating the dependence of poor health outcomes on social factors. Importantly, the expansion of quality free education interventions to improve would-be-mother’s health knowledge is emphasised.

Expression and purification of tau protein and its frontotemporal dementia variants using a cleavable histidine tag

Recombinant tau protein is widely used to study the biochemical, cellular and pathological aspects of tauopathies, including Alzheimers disease and frontotemporal dementia with Parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTPD-17). Pure tau in high yield is a requirement for in vitro evaluation of the proteins physiological and toxic functions. However, the preparation of recombinant tau is complicated by the proteins propensity to aggregate and form truncation products, necessitating the use of multiple, time-consuming purification methods. In this study, we investigated parameters that influence the expression of wild type and FTPD-17 pathogenic tau, in an attempt to identify ways to maximise expression yield. Here, we report on the influence of the choice of host strain, induction temperature, duration of induction, and media supplementation with glucose on tau expression in Escherichia coli. We also describe a straightforward process to purify the expressed tau proteins using immobilised metal affinity chromatography, with favourable yields over previous reports. An advantage of the described method is that it enables high yield production of functional oligomeric and monomeric tau, both of which can be used to study the biochemical, physiological and toxic properties of the protein.

Disregard of neurological impairments associated with neglected tropical diseases in Africa

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect people in the bottom billion poorest in the world. These diseases are concentrated in rural areas, conflict zones and urban slums in Africa and other tropical areas. While the World Health Organization recognizes seventeen priority NTDs, the list of conditions present in Africa and elsewhere that are eligible to be classified as NTDs is much longer. Although NTDs are generally marginalized, their associated neurological burden has been almost completely disregarded. However, reports indicate that trichuriasis, schistosomiasis and hookworm infection, among others, cause impairments in memory and cognition, negatively affecting school attendance rates and educational performance particularly among children, as well as agricultural productivity among adults. Consequently, the neurological impairments have substantial influence on education and economic productivity, thus aggravating and perpetuating poverty in affected societies. However, inadequate research, policy and public health attention has been paid to the neurological burdens associated with NTDs. In order to appropriately address these burdens, we recommend the development of policy interventions that focus on the following areas: (i) the introduction of training programs to develop the capacity of scientists and clinicians in research, diagnostic and treatment approaches (ii) the establishment of competitive research grant schemes to fund cutting-edge research into these neurological impairments, and (iii) the development of public health interventions to improve community awareness of the NTD-associated neurological problems, possibly enhancing disease prevention and expediting treatment.

Neurogenomics: Challenges and opportunities for Ghana

The application of genomic tools and technologies has shown the potential to help improve healthcare and our understanding of disease mechanisms. While genomic tools are increasingly being applied to research on infectious diseases, malaria and neglected tropical diseases in Africa, an area that has seen little application of genomic approaches on this continent is neuroscience. In this article, we examined the prospects of developing neurogenomics research and its clinical use in Ghana, one of the African countries actively involved in genomics research. We noted that established international research funding sources and foundations in genomic research such as H3ABioNet nodes established at a couple of research centres in Ghana provide excellent platforms for extending the usage of genomic tools and techniques to neuroscience-related research areas. However, existing challenges such as the (i) lack of degree programmes in neuroscience, genomics and bioinformatics; (ii) low availability of infrastructure and appropriately-trained scientists; and (iii) lack of local research funding opportunities, need to be addressed. To promote and safeguard the long-term sustainability of neurogenomics research in the country, the impact of the existing challenges and possible ways of addressing them have been discussed.

Commentary: Global, regional, and national burden of neurological disorders during 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Citation: Karikari TK, Charway-Felli A, Höglund K, Blennow K and Zetterberg H (2018) Commentary: Global, regional, and national burden of neurological disorders during 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015. Front. Neurol. 9:201. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2018.00201 Commentary: Global, regional, and national burden of neurological disorders during 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Preparation of stable tau oligomers for cellular and biochemical studies

Increasing evidence suggests that small oligomers are the principal neurotoxic species of tau in Alzheimers disease and other tauopathies. However, mechanisms of tau oligomer-mediated neurodegeneration are poorly understood. The transience of oligomers due to aggregation can compromise the stability of oligomers prepared in vitro. Consequently, we sought to develop an efficient method which maintains the stability and globular conformation of preformed oligomers. This study demonstrates that labeling a single-cysteine form of the pro-aggregant tau four-repeat region (K18) with either Alexa Fluor 488-C5-maleimide or N-ethylmaleimide in reducing conditions stabilizes oligomers by impeding their further aggregation. Furthermore, the use of this approach to study the propagation of labeled extracellular tau K18 oligomers into human neuroblastoma cells and human stem cell-derived neurons is described. This method is potentially applicable for preparing stabilized oligomers of tau for diagnostic and biomarker tests, as well as for in vitro structure-activity relationship assays.