 Okay. Good day, everyone. Welcome to the H3Africa DNA Day webinar. My name is Ebony Madden. I am a program director for the H3Africa ELSI program, which is part of the H3Africa Consortium. That's a consortium that was initiated to support cutting egg genomic research and capacity building on the African continent. And this is the second year that we are doing the H3Africa, which is the Human Health and Deready in Africa DNA Day presentation. And this is the second and final presentation for DNA Day. DNA Day's official celebration date is April 25. But the National Human Genome Research Institute celebrates it every year from January through May. DNA Day is a global movement to mobilize, energize, and empower communities, educators and students to innovate, collaborate, and discover the promise of our shared humanity and connection to the natural world. I am very pleased to present Paul Olunini is our speaker for today. Paul Olunini is a computational biologist and PhD research fellow at the African Center for Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases at Redeemer's University in Nigeria. His research work focuses on the use of genomics and computational tools to understand the evolution and genetic diversity of pathogens of public health concerns such as HIV one, Lassa virus, yellow fever, and SARS-CoV-2 virus in Nigeria and West Africa. His presentation will be on the genomic characterization and surveillance of microbial threats in West Africa. When Paul concludes his presentation, Ali Osgood, a program analyst within the National Human Genome Research Institute will moderate a question and answer session. Please place any questions that you have in the Q&A at the bottom of the screen. And thank you very much. Turn this over to Paul. Hi everyone. Thank you for the introduction. So, my name is Paul. And I'll be talking about some of the work we've been doing in the ASB lab on characterizing and trying to understand microbial threats in West Africa. So I'm just going to go ahead and share my screen now. I hope everyone can see my screen. So, so in my presentation I will talk briefly about how we have used genomic tools to understand Ebola outbreaks in Africa. Now, so I'll talk about some of our work using genomic tools to understand Lassa fever outbreaks and yellow fever and also then end with some of the work we've done on COVID-19 in Nigeria. So, as we all know, as probably some of us know, genome sequencing has really revolutionized health care and research all around the world. Ever since the human genome project has completed, so many, so many discoveries have been made as a result of that. It has led to advancement in personalized medicine development of drugs and vaccines for diseases and other things like that. But one of the things we have discovered is, despite how powerful genome sequencing has been and how much it has changed health care and research, a lot of these benefits have still not yet reached Africa or reached African scientists. And that's one of the reasons why ASGID was formed. So ASGID is a consortium based here in the Martin University board, together with partners in Nigeria. It's at the ISTH hospital in the two states of Nigeria, and other hospitals across the country, and together with other partners across Africa. There are partners in Syria alone, partners in Senegal, Liberia, and other parts of Africa. And there will also have partners in the US, the British studio, and other institutions across the world. The major aim of ASGID is to create an environment where African researchers can carry out cutting-edge genomic research and use this to benefit the health of Africans. The research arm of our consortium has been founded by the National Institutes of Health in Africa. One of the things we try to do is characterize fevers of unknown origins using mycobanatidomics. And then we develop diagnostic tools to understand, to detect pathogens in real time. Because one of the things we have discovered in not just Nigeria, but all across Africa, is in a lot of times, during an outbreak of a disease, the disease will have spread so much before we even knew what exactly the person would be out with. So one of the things we try to do in ASGID is to develop diagnostic kits that can detect pathogens in real time. And then we then use this information to also try to understand human and viral genetics. That is, why are some people more susceptible to a particular disease than some other people? Or why is this particular disease more dominant in the particular region of the world, region of the country or region of the continent than other parts? So, like I mentioned earlier, so our goal in ASGID is trying to develop the capacity of African scientists so they can carry out continued genomic research in Africa that can benefit Africans. And so now I'm going to go into some of the practical cases that we have had in ASGID, some of the ways in which in ASGID we have used genomic tools to understand disease outbreaks on the continent. So I'm going to start with the Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016. So, by the time we had gone months into the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Guinea, we still hadn't yet understood what was luckily causing the disease and too many people had been infected and died. It took about almost four months into the outbreak before we actually realized that the outbreak was being caused by the Ebola virus. But by this time, like I mentioned, the virus had already spread so many people across the country and was already spreading to other parts of Africa. So one of the things we did during the particular outbreak was to bring together ASGID partners from all across the world, to bring them together to the massive rest in Nigeria. And then we discussed how we can use genomic tools to combat this outbreak. And quickly, one of the things we did following this meeting was to start sequencing samples of patients. And then within a few weeks, we were able to release close to 100 genomes of the virus publicly available before we even release our paper. And then by August 2015, we had already released extra 150 genomes. And this was really useful in making informed public decisions and also this also helped us to then develop diagnostic kits that helped to detect the virus in real time. And one of the things with our genomics surveillance, the help us understand it during the outbreak in 2014-2016 was we were able to understand that there were four different types of the virus that were spreading in Sierra Leone. And this feature shows you that there was like a single animal to human spillover. And the rest of your book was sustained by human to human transmission. So that was one of the things that genomic tools help us understand, help us understand that the outbreak has been sustained by people coming in contact with infected people. And there was only like few cases of zoonotic introductions into the population. And this is just the picture showing you, showing the typical genome of the virus. And one of the things that genomic sequencing help us understand during the Ebola outbreak was, as the outbreak continued, the virus began to acquire mutations all across the genome. And this particular mutation began to confer some particular characteristics of the virus. Not every mutation will be useful, but some of these mutations and then ends up making, helping the virus to become more transmissible and sometimes more deadly. And this is just a map showing how we used the genomes of the virus to understand how the virus was spreading all across Africa in real time during the course of the outbreak. And this is what this shows the power of genomics and understanding. This is how it breaks and making informed public health responses during outbreaks. So like I mentioned earlier, following the meeting we had, we quickly sequenced our samples and we were able to release close to 100 genomes, and then subsequently released extra 150 genomes. Because we were able to understand the genome of the virus, we were able to then develop back with diagnostic kits, which were a few deployable that is, we could take these kits actually to the villages and to the inner regions of Africa, so that people didn't have to wait to send their samples to the cities or send their samples to foreign countries before we actually understood what was actually going on, what was actually causing diseases. And these diagnostic kits were approved by WHO and USFDA. And by the time the virus got into Nigeria, because we are already prepared for it, because we are under the genomic tools, we were able to quickly sequence the first case or the first, the index case that got into Nigeria. And then we were able to carry out contact tracing to isolate everyone that the index case are coming in contact with. This really helped us to understand the outbreak and helped us to stop the virus from spreading too fast within Nigeria. So within a few weeks we were able to combat the outbreak in Nigeria because quickly we were able to sequence the virus and we were able to carry out contact tracing to trace everyone the patients are coming in contact with and we were able to make public decisions that helped to prevent the outbreak from getting out of hand in Nigeria. And now what we've done so far, it's been the years that have been understanding Lesser Fever in Nigeria. Lesser Fever is also a variety of Fever and it's very endemic in Nigeria, every year in Nigeria we usually have outbreaks of Lesser. And Lesser can be, the mortality rates of Lesser Fever can be quite high, it can be about 15 to 60% in some cases. And one of the things about Lesser Fever, it's a very genetically diverse, the virus is very genetic, genetically diverse. And unlike Ebola that is, unlike Ebola, Lesser is primarily transmitted by good ends, although there are also cases of woman to man transmission, modally in hospitals. And so far we still don't have a vaccine yet and previously there were pro diagnostics and therapeutics for the virus. But one of the things that we have done in our lab at ISGID is we have carried out, one of the things we did was to carry out sequencing of over a hundred patient samples and also wooden samples. And we're able to understand that actually the virus is not new virus in Nigeria, the virus has been circulating in Nigeria for over a thousand years. And then spread out from Nigeria to every coast about 390 years ago. And this is very, this is very, this, this once again shows you the power of genomic tools, genomic tools can help you to understand how much a virus is spreading in a particular population and how long it has been in the population. And one of the things that were sequenced also helped us to understand was to see that there were different clades of the virus that is different in the case of the virus circulating within Nigeria. So in Nigeria we have about three different clades of the virus circulating. So that makes it very difficult to develop, that makes it difficult to develop diagnostic kits to detect the virus within the country. But one of the things we were able to do as a result of our sequencing work was to then develop diagnostic kits that would capture the diversity of the virus within the country. In 2018 we had a, we had a particular surge of lesser fever in Nigeria, and the major concern of, the major concern of scientists and the global public community was, is this surge caused by new variants of the virus. We are going to increase in, increase in amount to amount transmission or what exactly is causing this increase in cases. Again, we collected samples from patients, the samples were sent to our lab at his gate and we carried out, quickly we carried out in real time genomic sequencing, and we were able to obtain the virus, the genomes of the virus from different patient samples. And subsequently we sequenced the virus and did a lot of full data on sequences. One of the things that this helped us to understand was that there was no particular new strain of the virus circulating in Nigeria. So that was to calm the fears of the Nigerian government and also the global public community, that there was, there was no new strain of the virus circulating the country. And our genomic sequencing has helped us to understand that there was no evidence of sustained amount to amount transmission. So, we were able to see that the virus was spreading in Nigeria as a result of leading to human transmission, that is, people were regularly coming in contact with the evidence carrying this virus, and this result was resulting in cases in the country. So, and one of the things that genomic sequencing carried out in our lab also helped us to understand was the diversity of the virus in Nigeria is structured geographically. That is, we realized that we have different clades of the virus circulating in different regions of the country, split by different givers. So, I put this is which we put together in our paper which published in 2018 was that the rodents population spreading this virus to humans couldn't move across these rivers. So, that's why we have like different clades of the virus in different regions of the country. And this was understood by the media rivers. And the interesting thing about this was, all of this work was done within the country by Nigerians entirely carrying out this sequencing in the lab and we're making this results available to the Ministry of Health of the country and the Nigerian staff of this country in real time. And this helped them to make informed public decisions. And this was very helpful in covering the outbreak and this is, this is just like a photographic map showing how the virus spread all over the country over time, and we're able to generate a map like this, using the genomes of the virus so once again I show you the power of genomic sequencing in understanding how pathogens spreading in real time and how the infected people all across different regions in real time. And like I mentioned earlier, we were able to share these results in real time with the Ministry of Health and the Nigerian staff of this country and this helped in making informed public health decisions. One of the things we've also done through the years has been helping to contain a relief outbreak in the country. Also in 2018, about a cluster of 50 patients reported to one of our partners putting the country. But the doctors couldn't figure out what is actually causing their infections. So the doctors carried out malaria test and typhoid test and because this particular region was endemic for LASA, they said that LASA got tested and these patients were negative. But some of them were dying and we still didn't understand what was going on. So the sample is sent to our lab at ISGID and we carried out sequencing of samples. We were able to obtain the genomes of the virus and using the genomes of the virus we were able to, first of all we were able to understand that the outbreak was being caused by yellow fever virus. We reported our findings to the Nigerian staff of this country and this enabled the government to then initiate a yellow fever vaccination program in the country to stop the outbreak before it went so far. And one of the things we did was to obtain the genomes of the virus, like I mentioned, and then we were able to see that the virus was most likely imported from neighboring West African countries. And also, I haven't talked about that, I'm not going to talk about some of the work we've done in COVID-19 in Nigeria. So ever since the outbreak started in Nigeria our lab has been very involved in carrying out testing, carrying out diagnoses, and also carrying out sequencing to understand how the virus is spreading across the country, how people are getting infected, mutations occurring across the genomes of the virus, and to check if the virus is becoming more transmissible or more deadly. So Nigeria reported its first case of COVID-19 on 20th of February 2020, and this first case, this in this case sample was sent immediately to our lab, and within 48 hours we were able to release the first African SARS-CoV-2 genome from our lab, and this has been very useful in informing public health response in the country. So just like I mentioned earlier, one of the things we do in our lab is we carry out diagnosis of COVID-19 screening samples, and then we carry out the diagnosis sequencing to understand, to obtain the genome of the virus and then understand how the virus is spreading in real time all across the country. So this is just a chart showing an overview of the process that it takes to receive the sample, the process of the sample, to carry out sequencing and then carry out completion analysis. So this is a map showing the regions of the country from which we have obtained genomes so far. So we have obtained genomes so far from over 20-something states of the country, and this really has been useful in understanding how the virus is spreading across the country. So this is what this image shows you what we call a phylogenetic tweet. So basically phylogenetic tweet can help you to understand, especially on pathogens over time, and also understand changes occurring in genomes of the virus. So one of the things that it feels these phylogenetic analysis has helped us to really understand has been to see how the virus is spreading across the country in real time. I will give you a particular scenario. There was a particular case where by the time we sequenced the samples and built out views, we realized that a cluster of sequences, there was a particular sequence of about 10 of them that were clustering very closely together. So our question, so we went back to find out more about the patients and then we realized that these 10 people were traveling together in the same bus from one state of the country to another state of the country. So they most likely infected one another. So quickly we were able to make these findings available to the necessary authorities and we were able to isolate these particular patients. So this shows you the power of genomics in understanding, in understanding transmission of pathogens across space and across time. And one of the things we've also been doing since the beginning of the pandemic in Nigeria has been to check for, like I mentioned, mutations occurring across the world of the virus. And one particular linear that has been causing that has been a major focus of public health response all across the world has been the dual or seven image, which was always in the UK. So one of the things we've been doing in our lab has been monitoring the spread of the linear in the country. So we detected our first beyond seven in Nigeria on the 14th of December 2020, and ever since then 42% of us of our genomes have been the B117 show so in showing that that this particular lineage is now becoming dominant in the country. And one of the things about the B117 image is it has been shown to be highly transmissible and to be moderately. And now we've seen, we've seen this particular image in the capital of the country, Abuja and the state and other states of the country. And this is just a tree highlighting just the B117 image in the country. This really helps us to understand the patterns of spread of this particular lineage in the country. And one of the things we realized is there has been a lot of spread between countries, besides with these states in the country that are sharing close borders. And this is just a chart showing the frequency of different lineages of the virus in the country. And as you can see from the chart, this on this chart, the B117 lineage of the virus has been particularly dominant ever since we first discovered it in December. And this is just a chart showing the spread of the different mutations associated with this particular lineage across the genomes of our, across the genomes of samples collected in the country. So this video down here is just showing how different lineages of the virus have been spreading all across the country over time. And it has really made useful in helping to inform public health response. And we'll report our findings regularly with the Magistrate for Disease Control, and this helps the agency to make different public health decisions. And one of the things we've also been doing in the country in our lab has been to check for mutations in, check for primer mutations, like as you can see, there are different primers used for, we used to call your diagnosis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. So one of the things we do is to monitor if there are mutations occurring in the regions of the genome where these primers bind to. Because if there are mutations, then these primers might not actually pick the virus. And so we might be having a lot of false negative cases. And one of the things we've discovered is in some of the primers we've been using, there have actually been mutations occurring in the regions that we divide the virus. And we'll be aware that this might be, this has been resulting in some false negative cases in the country. And so, see, early this year there was, from late last year to early this year there was, there has been like a second wave of the virus in Nigeria. And one of the things we are analyzing in our lab has shown is some of these resurgence has been mostly in legal states in Abuja and Karnas state. Legal states as an international airport and is probably the economic hub of the country. And most people coming into the country usually come into the legal state. And this could be one of the major reasons why there was a particular surge of the virus in Nigeria around December last year to early this year. We realize that most of these people were people coming back into the country during the early this season and things like that. One of the things that has also been a focus of our attention in our lab so far has been a new lineage that was first discovered in patients who are 12 years from Nigeria in the UK and the US. And this particular news called the Bureau of Actified lineage has been known to have some particular unique mutations. So in our lab we have discovered that 39% of our genomes which we have sequenced since we first discovered this in Nigeria have been the Bureau of Actified lineage. So this has, I wanted to one of the things we are currently doing in the lab is to understand if this image actually arose in Nigeria or not. So we are currently carrying out some analysis of our genomes to understand if this image actually arose in Nigeria or not. So to round up my presentation, we now realize that the Bureau of Actified lineage is now the dominant lineage in the country. And we are seeing the emergence of a new lineage called the Bureau of Actified lineage, which is even spreading just as fast as the Bureau of Actified lineage. And one of the things we discovered from our analysis is, there has been multiple introductions of the SAS 2 virus in Nigeria from different parts of the world. And we've seen a lot of community transmission of the virus in different states of the country. So I would like to acknowledge all of my colleagues in the ISGID lab without from this potential to be possible, and also all our partners and collaborators. This is just pictures of my colleagues in the lab who have been involved in this one. So thank you everyone for listening. Thank you, Paul for that presentation and for sharing your time and expertise with us. And now we'll jump into questions. So one of the first questions someone asked was, can you compare the emergence of the four Ebola variants to the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 variants? And they also wondered if the timelines or types of mutations are comparable. Thank you for your question. So like I mentioned, one of the things that viruses are known for is that when they spread from person to person, they acquire mutations. And then these mutations can then, accumulation of these mutations can then result in new variants may form. So, can I compare the emergence? Yes, you can compare the emergence because because these variants are arising as a result of mutations. So the more people are infected, the more variants will see a colony population. Thank you. Another question someone asked was, what actually drives the mutation in primer binding sites in infectious disease pathogens? A lot of factors can drive the mutations. One of the major factors can be human immune response. So when these viruses infect people in order to try within an individual, they acquire mutations so that they can try. So the more they acquire mutations, some of these mutations will occur in the region in which these primers bind to. And then when we then use this virus, this particular primers to carrier diagnosis, we can have cases of false negatives. So what drives the mutations? So the more people, these viruses infect, the more they acquire mutations in order to survive and then the more we would see mutations in primer binding sites. Thank you. So in your presentation, you mentioned a couple times that through this work, you've been able to provide real time results to public health authorities. And someone was wondering how the ministry and other authorities communicate the risks of LASA and Ebola to communities. So I think one of the things that the government has been doing has been to create jingles, try to create videos in different languages that we could speak across the country. And then one of the things the government has also done is to actually go into these communities, talk to people who are well respected in these communities, maybe like the head of the community like talk to people who are well respected, who will then pass information across to the members of the community. One of the things that has really been very, very helpful in passing information across about different diseases and one of the things that the government has also done is using social media, which has also been very powerful in spreading the news about these pathogens and why people should take questions. Thank you. So it sounds like making the information accessible to communities is really important. Someone asked, what are some of the challenges to employing genomic surveillance techniques in communities? Yeah, so one of the challenges that we've been facing for instance in our lab for instance has been some of these genomic sequencing tools can be quite expensive. And so sometimes you need to secure funding to be able to like actually acquire them and then make use of them. And sometimes in this part in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, some of these funding are usually not readily available. And also expertise also matters. There are not many people in this region of the world who are actually skilled in using some of these equipment and tools. So it's always important to carry out, so it has been really useful, it has been really important to carry out trainings and constantly train many more African scientists to be able to use these tools. So one of the challenges that we are facing has been funding and also lack of expertise using some of these tools. And what are some of the tools in the lab that support the next generation sequencing that you use to analyze the data? Okay, so one of the things we do is we use different bioinformatics pipelines to assemble. So one of the tools we use, we use our VARRA NGS pipeline, which is developed by collaborators at the Gronis Institute. We use this pipeline to assemble our VARRA systems. And then we then use other softwares like NexTrain to build for genetic trees. And then we use softwares like pangolin and NexClades from the different lineages and clades of the virus spreading in the country. Thank you. And a little bit ago you mentioned the importance of training and education opportunities in Africa. Could you speak a little bit more about your training path within H3 Africa and your path to the position that you're currently in? Yes, so since I joined the H3 Africa project, one of the interesting things about H3 Africa is very particular about training African scientists. So I've been familiar to attend a lot of H3 Africa like trainings and webinars. And also my lab, the ASGID lab also has supported me to attend a lot of like, to attend like internships and trainings abroad in the US and in the UK. And this has helped me personally as an H2 Africa PhD fellow to acquire like skills and expertise in the country to use some business tools to understand these aspects in the country. Thank you for sharing. Someone was wondering, do you think the relatively low COVID-19 rates in Nigeria and in Africa compared to Western countries is due to genetic or environmental factors and could you discuss the environmental factors? Well, I mean, one of the things we are currently like, some of the research going on right now is there to understand the genetic reasons for some of this, some of the low, like I said, low cases we're having in African countries. But one of the things I might say is, some of the low cases we're having might not necessarily be because we're not, because the virus is not spreading in the country, but maybe because we're not carrying out enough tests. When we see the amount of testing going on in Nigeria, for instance, compared to in other non-African countries, we realize that there's a very big gap. So we are not actually carrying out enough tests within the country. So we can't really say we have low amount of cases. But also, we can also realize the fact that obviously there can be like other environmental factors, but that is still something that we are trying to like understand better. Or maybe our exposure to like maybe like previous pathogens could be confirming resistance and things like that, but that is something that we are trying to better understand. Thank you. The next question was, someone asked if you have considered using newer portable sequencers, and they also wondered if you faced any challenges in terms of biologic and bioinformatic equipment accessibility. Yes, so in our lab years, we've been using newer portable sequencers like the Oxford Nanopore, we've been using the Illumina I6100. So yeah, so we've been using newer sequencers to generate sequences in real time. So we didn't just use the Mi6 and the I6 and newer sequencers, we also actually used the smaller sequencers to obtain more sequences. And are we facing any challenges in terms of biologic and bioinformatic equipment accessibility? So one of the major challenges we've been facing in terms of has been, I believe, supply and reagent change. So sometimes when we order for like reagents to carry out sequencing because of so many logistical issues, sometimes it takes weeks and even months for this reagent to arrive in the lab. And this can actually, this sometimes slows down the work we do in that lab. So yes, we've been having a lot of like logistic challenges like supply chain issues with customs when the, even when the reagents arrive in the conflict. And this sometimes slows down our work. But in terms of bioinformatics accessibility, the major issue we've been having under area has been, the major issue has been banned with an internet issues. So sometimes internet connection is always like a big challenge for us. And so that sometimes affects, it slows down some of our analysis work and affecting all the computational work we do in the lab. Thank you for sharing. Someone wondered if you could describe patient privacy protections that are in place in Nigeria, or in other African countries for genomic surveillance. And is it a challenge to build trust in communities? So in our lab, for instance, one of the things we've done through the years in order to build trust has been we actually go into these communities and try to let them understand the relevance of our work. Within just coming and collect the sample, we actually try to like also develop the communities. So for instance, if we are going to work in a particular community, we would try to, because of the funding we received, you know, from the Africa from World Bank and several other organizations. We try to actually develop like maybe clinics in this community so that we actually benefit in the community as we also work in them. So it's interesting about coming there collecting the samples that also benefit the community. And when it comes to patient privacy, we make sure we make sure that we do not, our patients know that we do not release any private information. So we make sure that all our studies before we carry them out goes to rigorous ethical considerations before we even carry them out. We make sure we take our time to put that special privacy. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, that's really important. Looks like someone said that they are a pharmacist in Nigeria and they're interested in the surveillance of infectious diseases. So what are some of the opportunities what this person have from a student or h3 Africa in terms of scholarships. Yes. Thank you so yeah so. One of the things, one of the major focuses of is good and also it comes in as a whole is to build the capacity of African science. One of the ways that is going to get to Africa does this is by training masters and PhD students. So, yeah, it is good and I'm sure even the H2 as we hold there are lots of scholarships for like masters and PhD students. So, so if you're interested, you can check out the eskip website and show you find like how to apply and you find like opportunities for scholarships in the lab. We have a lot of opportunities for masters and PhD students. Thank you. And do you have any advice for young scientists who are interested in being part of this field. So, my, my, my advice would be to make use of, you know, the opportunities that available. I can mention that there are several opportunities available to traffic. Regularly organized several training several webinars on bioinformatics on molecular biology and genomics. And some of these resources are usually shared social media. So, so make use of all the opportunities you have. And like I mentioned, even as good is constantly like accepting masters and PhD, then so you can check out the website is good. And you can see how to apply. Also, reach out, you can reach out to if you see anybody in the field. Who's working to study, reach out to them. Now social media has made it very, very easy to access people so send DM send personal messages send emails, which are people and you realize that more people are willing to help. Thank you. I feel like someone has a question about data sharing. They wondered how do you ensure that the data generated is shared amongst other labs across the continent. And how do you ensure that that data is secure. Yeah. One of the things I can imagine whenever we doing these are based on every time you put a genome sequence in the lab one of the things we do is to make sure we release data in real time so this can help to inform public health response. So we released release. Our genome sequences on this side and NCBI, we make them available on virological so that people all across the country and across the world can see them. And one of the things we also do is we make sure that we do not release any private patient. So we only release genome sequences of pathogens of interest, but we make sure we do not release any private patient data. And so basically, and then we make sure we share our influences and results with, like I mentioned, the NCDC, which is not just about this country and other authorities in the country so that they can help to inform their public health responses. Like I mentioned, we also make use of social media. And then, because we have a lot of partners across the country. And so these are some of these are some of our partners are located actually in the areas in the country. So we, we have, we have people that we have trained will go out into these communities. And then we'll make findings available to people in these communities and break it down to them in ways they will understand. And also, some people will train also understand the language, languages spoken in these communities so they can actually communicate to them in their own language and make them understand our findings. That will make a motion that the information we get from the lab is actually available for everyone. And there are there any other ways that you or health authorities ensure that scientific data is communicated in more rural areas. So I didn't get a question. So I didn't get a question. I'll repeat it. Someone wondered how do you ensure your scientific data is communicated in the rural areas. So I think you touched on that a little bit, we would love to hear more. Okay. So, like I mentioned, many people who understand the language spoken in these communities, and then it's going to the communities and talk to like people in the community and make them understand our findings. One of the things we also do is whenever we go into the community we try to meet with the heads of the communities, like, it gets a king in the community or the chief meets with the heads or any people who are well respected within that community, and talk to them and didn't help us to pass this motion across. And one of the things we also do is, like I mentioned earlier to create videos great jingles in very interactive like media information so that people can actually watch and this can really help them to understand what we do in the lab and break it down to them in a way they wouldn't understand. Thank you. Someone said, you mentioned that social media is being used to communicate with communities. Do you think that the mobile health approach is making a difference. Yeah, yeah, I think so, especially in Nigeria, I think it's actually making a huge difference. I think, I think it's, it's making people more receptive to scientific findings. And it's also making people really understand better what scientists and doctors and health officials actually do. So I think yeah I think it's making a difference. That's awesome to hear. Someone also said you mentioned precision medicine. How do you ensure that this becomes democratizing in a country of almost 200 million with over 300 or so ethnic groups. So, I mean, this is something that we are constantly working with different, you know, organizations are working with the government working with different partners to make sure that this is achieved in the country. We have a long way to go in Nigeria and Africa zero when it comes to like precision medicine and making this democratizing this but this is something that we are constantly working on is something that we constantly meet with people on the ground just to see how we can make this equitable and accessible across the country. So this is something we are constantly working on. Thank you for answering that. Someone wondered how is your research supported beyond H3 Africa and other international funding sources. Has the government invested in genomics. So far, one of the many challenges we've been having in Nigeria has been a government has not been too willing to invest in research. So our lab, we are majorly funded by the graphical NIH at the World Bank. You can do that. So we are majorly funded right now by international organizations like the auditions projects. So we are majorly funded by international organizations right now. One of the things we also tend to do is to keep companies tend to convince the government to invest in genomic research for so far, like I mentioned, the government has not been too willing but we're hoping that will change a couple of years or the nearest future. Do you think COVID-19 and addressing this outbreak has changed public perception of genomic characterization and surveillance at all? Yeah, I think so. I think during COVID, we have been very aggressive in reaching out to people, especially to non-scientists. So I think this has really helped people to better understand what we are telling you, because before people just don't understand how genomics actually contributes to their health or affect them personally. I think some of the work we've done during this pandemic, aggressively going out, creating social media awareness, talking to people in the community, I think that actually changed people's perspective. And it has made people more open and more understanding of genomics and how it helps them stay healthy. I think the pandemic has helped us. I think someone was wondering if there are opportunities for undergraduate students as well. Yeah, so I think the most interesting right now, yes, so there are opportunities for undergraduate students and to be involved in genomic research, because our lab is based within the university, so we also support undergraduates and so yes, there are opportunities for undergraduates. And then, could you describe some of the major challenges you faced conducting genomics research in Nigeria and on the African continent? Yes, so I think one of our major challenges, and I think I mentioned this earlier has been funding. Somebody asked a question, most of our funding has been coming from international organizations. So, we haven't really, the government hasn't really funded much of the work we do. So, that has been a major challenge, getting the government to inform the work we do. Also, and that major challenge we're going to have in has been supplied chain for the agents. I mean, like I said, like I mentioned in my presentation, sometimes when we order for agents, it sometimes takes months before they get to the lab. And this is the result of different factors. So this also can really slow down research work. I mean, imagine wanting to carry out sequencing is the sequencing agent is taking months to arrive in the lab. This is months that we could have used to, you know, obtain like several genomes. So supply chain has been a major challenge also. And another major challenge, which I think the awareness we've been creating during the COVID pandemic has helped in alleviating a bit has been initially people just don't understand how genomics benefit them, what exactly contributes to their lives. So, you have to understand how our research work is really advanced to them. But I think it has also been like a major challenge. But I think one of the things we've been doing in doing the outbreak, you know, communicating to people aggressively, which is not, aggressively, which is not, I think that's also, but many challenges have been funding and then supply chain. Sometimes even when agents arrive in the country, you know, you still have to go through a lot of like customs issues and things like that. So that affects research work a lot. Thank you for sharing. And I think this might be our last question. What have you found, or what things have you found to be the most rewarding about this work that you are doing? Yeah, I think the most rewarding has been just knowing that the work I do in the lab, the work that my colleagues and I do in the lab is actually, you know, saving people's lives. I mean, like, when we make our findings available to health authorities, particularly helps them make informed, public decisions. I think that has really been very fulfilling personally for me and I think for my colleagues in the lab. And knowing that what we are doing is actually directly affecting the lives of people, making people's lives better, helping people to survive, to live, you know, earlier lives. So I think that has been very fulfilling personally for me and I'm here for all my colleagues in the lab. Sorry, I was muted. Definitely. And I think with that, thank you so much for sharing this important work that you are doing. Thank you to all of our attendees for coming and I hope everyone has a great rest of your day or afternoon or evening depending on where in the world you are. And thank you again, Paul. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone.