Esteemed participants at the 2nd AORTIC Conference
The second African Organization for Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC) conference on strengthening genomics capacity in Africa took place on May 8 – 10th, 2024 at the Marriott Hotel, Ikeja Lagos, Nigeria. The conference comprised different streams on cancer advocacy, cancer genomics and genomics tools, and career mentoring and grant winning information sessions. The streams were facilitated by CApIC-ACE faculty members and other esteemed facilitators.
Prof. Emeka Iweala, the Centre Leader for CApIC-ACE, anchored the advocacy stream where he introduced the CApIC-ACE team and gave an overview of the essence of the Centers’ research and the need to facilitate collaborations between the government and private partnerships to advance genomics skills in Africa for the common purpose of reducing the scourge of cancers.
Day-one of the conference was highly impactful as participants were introduced to basic genomics and bioinformatics resources by the Applied Research Coordinator, CApIC-ACE, Prof. Solomon Rotimi. Furthermore, participants were excited about the hands-on session with Prof. Rotimi on the use of bioinformatics tools such as TCGA, cBioportal, and UALCAN databases.
Dr. Itunu Isewon facilitated the bioinformatics analysis session where she taught the participants, data acquisition, processing, data formats, and the use of the Galaxy platform. In addition, Dr. James Alaro and Dr. Emmanuel Taylor anchored the career mentoring and NIH grants information sessions. Participants received tips on how to navigate the NIH platform to leverage resources for writing fundable grants as well as the importance of research mentoring for career development. Sharing his experience, Professor Rotimi spoke on how having a good mentorship system has helped his journey of grant writing to become better. The sessions were highly interactive and educative for early, mid and senior career level participants, and it also served as a networking session.
Day-two started with keynote addresses from the AORTIC president, Prof. Anorlu and the Scientific Chair and CaPTC partner PI, Prof Odedina and many other national and international facilitators who delivered lectures on leveraging genomics for cancer prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, among others.
Industry partner of CApIC-ACE, Katchey and other companies showcased their products and services to the participants. The capacity development conference was enlightening and well attended by over 100 participants - dignitaries, policy makers, researchers, clinicians, and other stakeholders in cancer management including graduate students under training at CAPIC-ACE. The event ended with cultural performance and a networking dinner at the Marriott Hotel.
Graduate students’ participants under training at CAPIC-ACE