During a stay at the DTU National Food Institute, young researchers from Ghana, Senegal, and South Africa collaborated with Danish colleagues to test new approaches to monitoring antimicrobial resistance. The tools are now being adapted and put to use in their own laboratories.
“The experience provided me with confidence to network and exchange ideas and experiences. This gave me a strong foundation to continue building and learning new ways to navigate through the world of genomics,” says Sade Magabotha, a bioinformatician at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), Centre of Enteric Diseases (Bacteriology).
Sharing knowledge across borders
The training programmes, “Twinning”, are part of SeqAfrica, a research project with participants from institutions in the three African countries and Denmark. Led by the DTU National Food Institute, the project aims to strengthen surveillance of antimicrobial resistance through joint training and knowledge exchange.
An important aspect of a Twinning visit is that the researchers work side by side and learn from each other’s expertise.
From Lyngby to Dakar
Cheikh Lo from the Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal took part in an intensive programme at DTU, where he worked with a number of new tools for resistance determination which are now being integrated into the analyses in Dakar. William Boateng, Grebstad Rabbi Amuasi and Christian Owusu-Nyantakyi from the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research in Ghana, together with Sade Magabotha from the National Institute for Communicable Disease in South Africa, were introduced to, among other things, machine learning for resistance prediction and visualisation tools.
The group also visited the Statens Serum Institut and the biotech company SNIPR Biome. These visits provided insights into how surveillance is organised in Denmark and offered opportunities to exchange experiences with experts in surveillance systems and metagenomics.
New methods already in use
The stay in Denmark is one step in a longer process, and the participants are already integrating new tools and adapting methods to their national systems. Several are also planning local workshops to share the knowledge more widely.
“As an early-career bioinformatician, I can now reach out to the colleagues I have met to exchange ideas with, as well as seek their expertise in fields new to me,” says Sade Magabotha.
A collaboration with perspective
The SeqAfrica project is now exploring ways to further develop the Twinning model – for example, through longer visits, more structured networking activities, and clearer resource planning.
“Through initiatives like Twinning, we are not just training scientists – we are building a resilient network of future leaders who can develop innovative solutions to antibiotic resistance,” says bioinformatician and research assistant Niamh Lacy-Roberts from the DTU National Food Institute
Read more
Read more about the Fleming Fund Regional Grant SeqAfrica.
Read more about antimicrobial resistance on the DTU Food Institute’s website.
