Browsing by Author "Kumuthini, Judit"

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    Open Access
    African Genomic Medicine Portal: A Web Portal for Biomedical Applications
    (2022-02-11) Othman, Houcemeddine; Zass, Lyndon; da Rocha, Jorge E B; Radouani, Fouzia; Samtal, Chaimae; Benamri, Ichrak; Kumuthini, Judit; Fakim, Yasmina J; Hamdi, Yosr; Mezzi, Nessrine; Boujemaa, Maroua; Okeke, Chiamaka Jessica; Tendwa, Maureen B; Sanak, Kholoud; Chaouch, Melek; Panji, Sumir; Kefi, Rym; Sallam, Reem M; Ghoorah, Anisah W; Romdhane, Lilia; Kiran, Anmol; Meintjes, Ayton P; Maturure, Perceval; Jmel, Haifa; Ksouri, Ayoub; Azzouzi, Maryame; Farahat, Mohammed A; Ahmed, Samah; Sibira, Rania; Turkson, Michael E E; Ssekagiri, Alfred; Parker, Ziyaad; Fadlelmola, Faisal M; Ghedira, Kais; Mulder, Nicola; Kamal Kassim, Samar
    Genomics data are currently being produced at unprecedented rates, resulting in increased knowledge discovery and submission to public data repositories. Despite these advances, genomic information on African-ancestry populations remains significantly low compared with European- and Asian-ancestry populations. This information is typically segmented across several different biomedical data repositories, which often lack sufficient fine-grained structure and annotation to account for the diversity of African populations, leading to many challenges related to the retrieval, representation and findability of such information. To overcome these challenges, we developed the African Genomic Medicine Portal (AGMP), a database that contains metadata on genomic medicine studies conducted on African-ancestry populations. The metadata is curated from two public databases related to genomic medicine, PharmGKB and DisGeNET. The metadata retrieved from these source databases were limited to genomic variants that were associated with disease aetiology or treatment in the context of African-ancestry populations. Over 2000 variants relevant to populations of African ancestry were retrieved. Subsequently, domain experts curated and annotated additional information associated with the studies that reported the variants, including geographical origin, ethnolinguistic group, level of association significance and other relevant study information, such as study design and sample size, where available. The AGMP functions as a dedicated resource through which to access African-specific information on genomics as applied to health research, through querying variants, genes, diseases and drugs. The portal and its corresponding technical documentation, implementation code and content are publicly available.
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    "Broadband" bioinformatics skills transfer with the Knowledge Transfer Programme (KTP): educational model for upliftment and sustainable development
    (Public Library of Science, 2015) Chimusa, Emile R; Mbiyavanga, Mamana; Masilela, Velaphi; Kumuthini, Judit
    A shortage of practical skills and relevant expertise is possibly the primary obstacle to social upliftment and sustainable development in Africa. The "omics" fields, especially genomics, are increasingly dependent on the effective interpretation of large and complex sets of data. Despite abundant natural resources and population sizes comparable with many first-world countries from which talent could be drawn, countries in Africa still lag far behind the rest of the world in terms of specialized skills development. Moreover, there are serious concerns about disparities between countries within the continent. The multidisciplinary nature of the bioinformatics field, coupled with rare and depleting expertise, is a critical problem for the advancement of bioinformatics in Africa. We propose a formalized matchmaking system, which is aimed at reversing this trend, by introducing the Knowledge Transfer Programme (KTP). Instead of individual researchers travelling to other labs to learn, researchers with desirable skills are invited to join African research groups for six weeks to six months. Visiting researchers or trainers will pass on their expertise to multiple people simultaneously in their local environments, thus increasing the efficiency of knowledge transference. In return, visiting researchers have the opportunity to develop professional contacts, gain industry work experience, work with novel datasets, and strengthen and support their ongoing research. The KTP develops a network with a centralized hub through which groups and individuals are put into contact with one another and exchanges are facilitated by connecting both parties with potential funding sources. This is part of the PLOS Computational Biology Education collection.
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    The development of computational biology in South Africa: successes achieved and lessons learnt
    (Public Library of Science, 2016) Mulder, Nicola J; Christoffels, Alan; De Oliveira, Tulio; Gamieldien, Junaid; Hazelhurst, Scott; Joubert, Fourie; Kumuthini, Judit; Pillay, Ché S; Snoep, Jacky L; Bishop, Özlem Tastan; Tiffin, Nicki
    Bioinformatics is now a critical skill in many research and commercial environments as biological data are increasing in both size and complexity. South African researchers recognized this need in the mid-1990s and responded by working with the government as well as international bodies to develop initiatives to build bioinformatics capacity in the country. Significant injections of support from these bodies provided a springboard for the establishment of computational biology units at multiple universities throughout the country, which took on teaching, basic research and support roles. Several challenges were encountered, for example with unreliability of funding, lack of skills, and lack of infrastructure. However, the bioinformatics community worked together to overcome these, and South Africa is now arguably the leading country in bioinformatics on the African continent. Here we discuss how the discipline developed in the country, highlighting the challenges, successes, and lessons learnt.
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    Development of computational methods for custom protein arrays analysis : a case study on a 100-protein ("CT100") cancer/testis antigen array
    (2010) Safari Serufuri, Jean-Michel; Blackburn, Jonathan; Mulder, Nicola; Kumuthini, Judit
    Custom antigen arrays offer a platform to assay the serological response of cancer patients to at set of selected cancer testis antigens in order to infer a diagnosis value or to assess the patient responses to particular treatments. However, the acquisition of the array data is subject to bias and noise. Therefore, array data processing and analysis is required to clear the data from bias, reduce noise and learn from the data. This study aims to address the issues of normalization and sample qualitative clustering for custom protein arrays.
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    The H3ABioNet helpdesk: an online bioinformatics resource, enhancing Africa’s capacity for genomics research
    (2019-12-30) Kumuthini, Judit; Zass, Lyndon; Panji, Sumir; Salifu, Samson P; Kayondo, Jonathan K; Nembaware, Victoria; Mbiyavanga, Mamana; Olabode, Ajayi; Kishk, Ali; Wells, Gordon; Mulder, Nicola J
    Abstract Background Currently, formal mechanisms for bioinformatics support are limited. The H3Africa Bioinformatics Network has implemented a public and freely available Helpdesk (HD), which provides generic bioinformatics support to researchers through an online ticketing platform. The following article reports on the H3ABioNet HD (H3A-HD)‘s development, outlining its design, management, usage and evaluation framework, as well as the lessons learned through implementation. Results The H3A-HD evaluated using automatically generated usage logs, user feedback and qualitative ticket evaluation. Evaluation revealed that communication methods, ticketing strategies and the technical platforms used are some of the primary factors which may influence the effectivity of HD. Conclusion To continuously improve the H3A-HD services, the resource should be regularly monitored and evaluated. The H3A-HD design, implementation and evaluation framework could be easily adapted for use by interested stakeholders within the Bioinformatics community and beyond.