Collen Masimirembwa, Professor, Founding President and Chief Scientific Officer of the African Institute of Biomedical Science and Technology (AiBST), Zimbabwe, will generate a research and innovation ecosystem, including training scientists and establishing centers of excellence in genomic medicine research, for the sustainable development of genomic and pharmaceutical medicine capability in Africa.

Collen Masimirembwa, PhD, and his team at the African Institute of Biomedical Sciences and Technology (AiBST) in Zimbabwe have determined that the unique genetic make-up of sub-Saharan Africans was responsible for the relatively low success rate of drug treatments for HIV/AIDS. His research revealed that the treatment model employed around the world was based on the unique genetics of Caucasians in Europe and North America, and that sub-Saharan Africans metabolically respond very differently to the same drug, often creating side-effects that discourage patients from continuing with treatment. With the help of SPARKGlobal, an initiative started by Stanford Medicine's Daria Mochly-Rosen, PhD, Masimirembwa's team was able to develop an assay to identify the genetics of metabolizing this drug and to come up with a clinical trial to prove how efficacious altering the treatment dosage to accommodate the difference might be. To learn more about SPARKGlobal, visit https://sparkmed.stanford.edu/about-spark/spark-global/