The University of Abuja and a consortium of international institutions have secured over £5 million to advance patient-centred sickle cell disease research across sub-Saharan Africa.
The grant, awarded under the PACTS (Patient-Centred Sickle Cell Disease Management in Sub-Saharan Africa)project, was announced during a high-level capacity-building workshop hosted at the university. The workshop was jointly organised by the National Centre of Excellence for Sickle Cell Research and Training (NCESTRA) and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM).
Speaking at the event, Prof. Obiageli Nnodu, Director of NCESTRA and Co-Principal Investigator of PACTS, emphasised the importance of building research capacity within African institutions.
“Research is a very important vehicle for national development and it is good for African institutions to have the capacity to do research strengthening through training and then through putting the right infrastructure in place, not only to win grants, but to monitor, manage and carry out the research projects and to be able to report and implement findings from research projects into the society, into policy,” she stated.
Prof. Nnodu, who also leads UniAbuja’s Centre for Sponsored Projects, added that the PACTS initiative includes partners from Ghana, Zambia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and seeks to empower local researchers to lead transformative work in sickle cell disease management.
She noted the significance of the workshop, saying:
“This capacity strengthening workshop is key to our universities because over the past four years, we have had significant increases in the number of research grants that we are getting, but we also have what I would tend to say is a population, a faculty that needs to have their capacity built to participate in funded research.’’
Declaring the workshop open, Acting Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja, Prof. Patricia Lar, reaffirmed the institution’s commitment to solving real-world health challenges.
“This workshop represents a key moment in our shared commitment to advancing research excellence. Particularly in the fight against sickle cell disease, which is a public health challenge, not only in Nigeria, but in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa,” said Prof. Lar, represented by Prof. Rhoda Mundi, her Senior Special Assistant on Academic Matters.
She further underscored the workshop’s broader value:
“So, I hope that this is an opportunity to share knowledge, to learn from one another, and to form a collective result to improve health outcomes, not just in Nigeria, but throughout, and to improve the quality of the research we have.”
Also speaking, Prof. Imelda Bates, Principal Investigator for PACTS, described the project’s patient-first model as a shift in traditional research approaches.
“It is patient-centred sickle cell disease management in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is a totally new way of doing research because it puts the patients at the centre. So we talk to them about their problems and then we try and address some of those through research.
“Obviously Nigeria is the place to do this because Nigeria has by far the biggest population in the world of those living with sickle cell disease. So it’s clearly an absolute priority for the country to do research on sickle cell disease,” she said.
The multi-million-pound initiative is being hailed as a transformative leap in medical research collaboration between Nigeria and global institutions, one that could redefine the future of sickle cell disease management on the continent.
