- Olivier Sibomana: Department of General Medicine and Surgery, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda. ORCID
Introduction: Africa, a continent considered to be the cradle of human beings has the largest genetic diversity among its population than other continents. This review discusses the implications of this high African genetic diversity to the development of personalized and precision medicine.
Methodology: A comprehensive search across PubMed, Google Scholar, Science Direct, DOAJ, AJOL, and the Cochrane Library electronic databases and manual Google searches was conducted using key terms "genetics", "genetic diversity", "Africa", "precision medicine", and "personalized medicine". Updated original and review studies focusing on the implications of African high genetic diversity on personalized and precision medicine were included. Included studies were thematically synthesized to elucidate their positive or negative implications for personalized healthcare, aiming to foster informed clinical practice and scientific inquiry.
Results: African populations' high genetic diversity presents opportunities for personalized and precision medicine including improving pharmacogenomics, understanding gene interactions, discovering new variants, mapping disease genes, creating updated genomic reference panels, and validating biomarkers. However, challenges include underrepresentation in studies, scarcity of reference genomes, inaccuracy of genetic testing and interpretation, and ancestry misclassification. Addressing these requires the establishment of genomic research centers, increasing funding, creating biobanks and repositories, education, infrastructure, and international cooperation to enhance healthcare equity and outcomes through personalized and precision medicine.
Conclusion: High African genetic diversity presents both positive and negative implications for personalized and precision medicine. Deep further research is recommended to harness the challenges and use the opportunities to develop customized treatments.