Neuroscience research in Africa remains sparse. Devising new policies to boost Africa’s neuroscience landscape is imperative, but these must be based on accurate data on research outputs which is largely lacking. Such data must reflect the heterogeneity of research environments across the continent’s 54 countries. Here, we analyse neuroscience publications affiliated with African institutions between 1996 and 2017. Of 12,326 PubMed indexed publications, 5,219 show clear evidence that the work was performed in Africa and led by African-based researchers - on average ~5 per country and year. From here, we extract information on journals and citations, funding, international coauthorships and techniques used. For reference, we also extract the same metrics from 220 randomly selected publications each from the UK, USA, Australia, Japan and Brazil. Our dataset provides insights into the current state of African neuroscience research in a global context.

Ethnic origin plays an important role in bone morphometry. Studies examining the influence of coracoid process have focused primarily on adults and have not included people from diverse Asian ethnic backgrounds. Our goal was to explore ethnic differences in morphometry of coracoid among Asian population. We performed morphometric measurements of coracoid process on cadaveric shoulders and shoulder CT scans from 118 specimens. The cadaveric sample included Indian (46%), Chinese (27%), and Myanmarese (27%) subjects, while the CT scans sample included Chinese (67%) and Malay (33%) subjects. The morphometric measurements were performed using digital caliper and software developed at Golden Horses Health Sanctuary (GHHS). In the Indian cadaveric shoulders, the coracoid process is better developed than the other groups with the exception of the tip width of coracoid process. There are significant differences in almost all measurements (P<0.05) between the ethnic groups. On the other hand, the morphometry of coracoid process from CT scans data is bigger in Chinese than Malay subjects when stratified by sex (P<0.05). Moreover, in all morphometric measurements, the females had smaller measurements than males (P<0.05). Understanding such differences is important in anatomy, forensic and biological identity, and orthopaedic and shoulder surgeries.

Breast cancer is the malignant tumour that developed from cells of the breast and is the first leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide. Surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy are the available treatments for breast cancer, but these were reported to have side effects. Newcastle disease virus (NDV) known asAvian paramyxovirustype-1 (APMV1) belongs to the genusAvulavirusin a family Paramyxoviridae. NDV is shown to be a promising anticancer agent, killing tumour cells while sparing normal cells unharmed. In this study, the oncolytic and cytotoxic activities of NDV AF2240 strain were evaluated on MDA-MB-231, human mammary carcinoma cell line, using MTT assay, and its inhibitory effects were further studied using proliferation and migration assays. Morphological and apoptotic-inducing effects of NDV on MD-MB-231 cells were observed using phase contrast and fluorescence microscopes. Detection of DNA fragmentation was done following terminal deoxyribonucleotide transferase-mediated Br-dUTP nick end labeling staining (TUNEL) assay, which confirmed that the mode of death was through apoptosis and was quantified by flow cytometry. Furthermore, analysis of cellular DNA content demonstrated that the virus caused an increase in the sub-G1 phase (apoptotic peak) of the cell cycle. It appears that NDV AF2240 strain is a potent anticancer agent that induced apoptosis in time-dependent manner.

Africa plays a central importance role in the human origins, and disease susceptibility, agriculture and biodiversity conservation. Nigeria as the most populous and most diverse country in Africa, owing to its 250 ethnic groups and over 500 different native languages is imperative to any global genomic initiative. The newly inaugurated Nigerian Bioinformatics and Genomics Network (NBGN) becomes necessary to facilitate research collaborative activities and foster opportunities for skills’ development amongst Nigerian bioinformatics and genomics investigators. NBGN aims to advance and sustain the fields of genomics and bioinformatics in Nigeria by serving as a vehicle to foster collaboration, provision of new opportunities for interactions between various interdisciplinary subfields of genomics, computational biology and bioinformatics as this will provide opportunities for early career researchers. To provide the foundation for sustainable collaborations, the network organises conferences, workshops, trainings and create opportunities for collaborative research studies and internships, recognise excellence, openly share information and create opportunities for more Nigerians to develop the necessary skills to exceed in genomics and bioinformatics. NBGN currently has attracted more than 650 members around the world. Research collaborations between Nigeria, Africa and the West will grow and all stakeholders, including funding partners, African scientists, researchers across the globe, physicians and patients will be the eventual winners. The exponential membership growth and diversity of research interests of NBGN just within weeks of its establishment and the unanticipated attendance of its activities suggest the significant importance of the network to bioinformatics and genomics research in Nigeria.

Different strains of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) worldwide proved to have tumouricidal activity in several types of cancer cells. However, the possible anti-cancer activity of Malaysian NDV AF2240 strain and its mechanism of action remains unknown. The ability of cytokine-related apoptosis-inducing NDV AF2240 to treat breast cancer was investigated in the current study. A total of 90 mice were used and divided into 15 groups, each group comprising of 6 mice. Tumour, body weight and mortality of the mice were determined throughout the experiment, to observe the effect of NDV and NDV + tamoxifen treatments on the mice. In addition, the toxic effect of the treatments was determined through liver function test. In order to elucidate the involvement of cytokine production induced by NDV, a total of six cytokines, i.e. IL-6, IFN-γ, MCP-1, IL-10, IL12p70 and TNF-α were measured using cytometric bead array assay (plasma) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot (isolated splenocytes). The results demonstrated that 4 T1 breast cancer cells in allotransplanted mice treated with AF2240 showed a noticeable inhibition of tumour growth and induce apoptotic-related cytokines. NDV AF2240 suppression of breast tumour growth is associated with induction of apoptotic-related cytokines. It would be important to further investigate the molecular mechanism underlaying cytokines production by Newcastle disease virus.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) was earlier thought to be a disease prevalent in the West among Caucasians. However, quite a number of recent studies have uncovered CF cases outside of this region, and reported hundreds of unique and novel variant forms of CFTR. Here, we discuss the evidence of CF in parts of the world earlier considered to be rare; Africa, and Asia. This review also highlighted the CFTR mutation variations and new mutations discovered in these regions. This discovery implies that the CF data from these regions were earlier underestimated. The inadequate awareness of the disease in these regions might have contributed towards the poor diagnostic facilities, under-diagnosis or/and under-reporting, and the lack of CF associated health policies. Overall, these regions have a high rate of infant, childhood and early adulthood mortality due to CF. Therefore, there is a need for a thorough investigation of CF prevalence and to identify unique and novel variant mutations within these regions in order to formulate intervention plans, create awareness, develop mutation specific screening kits and therapies to keep CF mortality at bay.