Google grant advances African pharmacogenomics

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has secured $1.6-million (about R26.4-million) from Google.org to advance pharmacogenomics research focused on African genetic diversity.

Its AfriPGx-AI platform will investigate how genetic variation influences medicine metabolism, initially targeting treatments for tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. Researchers will catalogue variation across more than 50 drug-metabolising genes, use artificial intelligence to prioritise potentially important variants, and test the strongest predictions in the laboratory.

The project addresses a significant evidence gap: existing pharmacogenomic guidelines draw largely on European and East Asian populations, limiting their relevance to Africa’s genetically diverse populations.

For the molecular diagnostics industry, the work could help to inform which variants warrant inclusion in future pharmacogenomic assays, supporting more locally relevant testing. However, this is a research programme, not the launch of a clinical test.

The team includes Professor Kelly Chibale, founder and director of UCT’s H3D drug discovery centre. Its findings are intended to support safer medicine selection and dosing, with decision-support tools designed for low-bandwidth environments.

Software, AI models and curated datasets will be openly available, giving researchers resources to build on the findings and potentially extend the approach to cancer and cardiovascular treatments.

The funding will also support African researcher training. For Celtic Molecular Diagnostics and our partners, this is a welcome development and we look forward to new learnings.

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