5 Research assistants from WACCBIP win international challenge
Five research assistants from the University of Ghana’s West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) have been named among the winners of an international data challenge that aims to, among others, address antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is a leading threat to global public health.
The Vivli AMR (Antimicrobial Resistance) Surveillance Data Challenge, funded by Johnson & Johnson, Paratek, Pfizer, and a U.S. National Institutes of Health award, aims to stimulate and support the re-use of surveillance data available in the Vivli AMR Register to develop innovative tools to address AMR.
Fifty-eight teams with members from 22 different countries participated in the challenge, which offered the opportunity for those multidisciplinary teams to leverage high-quality industry AMR surveillance data and address important questions related to AMR.
The five research assistants from the WACCBIP project, titled “Multidimensional Surveillance of AMR in North and Central America Using Species, Age, Geographic, and Genomic Insights,” employed a novel multi-layered analytical approach to map AMR trends across different demographic and geographic variables.
By integrating species-specific data with age, genomic, and location-based insights, the team’s work offered new ways to understand and predict AMR dynamics—an approach that can enhance decision-making for public health interventions in both resource-rich and resource-limited settings.
Statement
A statement issued by WACCBIP announcing their win, the AMR Impact Award, named the five to be Righteous Kwaku Agoha, the team lead; Wendy Akushika Dogbegah, Albert Yao Kudakpo, and Dorvi Ignatus Nunana from the University of Ghana, with Dr Stephen Obol Opiyo from the Ohio State University as a collaborator.
It said Albert Yao Kudakpo and Dorvi Ignatus Nunana were members of the Genomics and bioinformatics Group at WACCBIP working with Dr Lucas Amenga-Etego on Genomic Surveillance of Malaria in West Africa.
It said the team was one of six winning teams and one honourable mention recognised by a distinguished panel of international judges.
It mentioned other top awards in the challenge to be the AMR Global Leadership Award Grand Prize which went to Vellore Institute of Technology, India; the AMR Visionary Award Grand Prize received by Claire Vania from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Anushruti Gupta from Johns Hopkins University, USA, and the AMR Student Innovation Award, which was received by a team from the University of Oxford, UK.
It quoted the Chair of the Vivli AMR Scientific Advisory Board and Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Cape Town, Dr Marc Mendelson, as saying that this year’s submissions “demonstrated remarkable growth in the quality and creativity of data-driven solutions for addressing AMR. We congratulate all the winners, particularly the University of Ghana team, for their impactful work.”
It said Mr Agoha said the award was a testament to the power of African-led innovation in addressing global health challenges.
“Through the Vivli AMR Surveillance Data Challenge, we were able to demonstrate how data from diverse regions can be harnessed to generate meaningful insights that inform AMR control strategies worldwide,” Mr Agoha said.
The Vivli AMR Surveillance Data Challenge is part of Vivli’s broader mission to advance global health through open data sharing and collaborative research.
