55
Member States of the African Union
Research rootedin representation.
The research shaping human genetics was not built equally. This is a space to understand why that matters and what is being done about it.
Africa holds the deepesthuman genetic diversityand yet remains underrepresented.
Africa is the cradle of humanity. More human genetic diversity exists across the continent than anywhere else on Earth, yet many African populations and African diaspora communities remain severely underrepresented in genomic research and the datasets used to shape modern genomic science.
Those databases influence how ancestry is interpreted, how health risks are assessed and how precision medicine is developed. When the foundation is narrow, the science built upon it carries that narrowness forward.
ìmọ̀ exists to change that.
The science that should belooking out for us.
For our communities, the gap is not abstract. It affects which health risks get studied, which questions get asked and which discoveries never get made at all.
Closing that gap requires more than data. It requires trust, clarity and meaningful participation from the people research is intended to serve.
Communities should participate in the science that is built from their data, not simply be subjects of it.
Participation should mean more than providing a sample. It should mean having a voice.
Africa by the numbers
Understanding humanity beginswith understanding Africa.
1.5B+
People living across Africa today
~2,000
Indigenous languages estimated across the continent
>1 in 4
People globally projected to be African by 2050
#1
African populations show the greatest human genetic variability
3M+
Previously undescribed variants uncovered in one major H3Africa genome study
Sources: African Union, UN Data, UNESCO, United Nations, NHGRI, and Nature.
Research shaped withour communities.
Community members, researchers, healthcare organisations and partners — all in the same conversation. Questioning, contributing and building something more representative together.