Building an African Biobank

Catherine Tcheandjieu grew up in a rural town in West Cameroon, caring for sick animals and dissecting mice to observe their organs, and has been fascinated by biology ever since

Tcheandjieu is a human geneticist who combines machine learning with more traditional statistical methods to understand the genetic roots of disease

"There is a huge demand for Katherine's work," said Dr.

Tcheandjieu was most recently a postdoc at Stanford University, where she conducted the largest genetic study of coronary artery disease to date in European, African, Spanish and Asian populations

"I'm excited to bring my unique expertise to Gladstone," Tcheandjieu said

detect disease tendencies

The human genome contains more than 20,000 genes

Tcheandjieu is interested in better understanding the specific parts of a person's genome that predispose them to disease

"I really want to target my research to populations that have been neglected over time, such as Africans, African Americans, Latinos, and Indigenous people

Once she identifies the genes that contribute to a certain disease risk, she combines that information with environmental exposure data to build models that can predict a person's risk of developing the disease

"My goal is that one day these models will allow you to go to your doctor and they can tell you, based on your life>

In addition to providing a new tool to help guide medical decision-making, her work could help identify genes that could be therapeutic targets for treating disease

Bringing Diversity to Genome Research

As part of her research, Tcheandjieu compared a group of patients with a disease to a group of patients without the disease and analyzed their DNA for genetic variation

"This is one of the most diverse datasets in the United States, including data on more than 100,000 African Americans," she explained

This diversity -- historically lacking in genome research -- is especially important to Tcheandjieu

Tcheandjieu's long-term goal is to build an African biobank to ensure that understudied populations are properly represented in future genomic studies

To date, most studies have relied solely on genetic data from people of European ancestry, who make up only 30% of the global population

"I really wanted to target my research to populations that have been forgotten over time, such as Africans, African Americans, Latinos and Indigenous peoples," Tcheandjieu said
.
"I wanted to do something about me and Something useful to my family because we are part of the Forsaken
.
It's important to focus on 100% of the world's population to make sure the treatment reaches everyone
.
"

From dissecting mice to studying heart disease

tchandjieu grew up in Bafang, a farming town in Cameroon
.
Her passion for research and medicine began when she was 8 when she decided to adopt a sick newborn goat
.

"No one could separate me from that little goat," she recalled
.
"We were together 24 hours a day, we even slept together
.
I actually got a bad cold because of it, and I had a hard nose for a few years after that
.
"

A few months later, the goat died, and Tandjieu was distraught
.
That's when she promised to take care of others and become a doctor
.
She read biology books and started following her father
.
Her father, a registered nurse specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, was actually the town doctor
.

“My dad was my greatest inspiration, he inspired me and inspired me to pursue scientific research
.
In his honor, I decided to focus my research on cardiovascular disease and see how I could help people
.
"

Catherine Tcheandjieu, DVM, PhD

When she was 12, she started setting up mousetraps to catch rodents, and she would sit in the front yard and dissect them with a cutter, looking at their organs and understanding how they were interconnected
.

Tcheandjieu eventually won a scholarship to study veterinary medicine in Algeria, where she completed her dissertation on using genetic selection to improve the economic yield of dairy cows
.
Intrigued by the field of genetics, she decided to pursue research with the goal of becoming a professor
.

She completed her PhD in thyroid cancer epidemiology at the University Paris-Saclay, France
.
During this time, her father died of complications from a stroke
.

"My father was my greatest inspiration, he inspired me and inspired me to pursue scientific research," she said
.
"In his honor, I decided to focus my research on cardiovascular disease and see me How to help people
.
"

So Tcheandjieu next went to Stanford University to study genetic risk factors for cardiovascular disease
.
There, she discovered several genetic variants associated with aortic shape and size that could be used for early prediction of aortic valve disease
.

By establishing her lab at Gladstone, Tcheandjieu looks forward to continuing her work in cardiovascular disease and expanding it into other areas including neurological and immune diseases
.

"I really enjoy connecting and interacting with other researchers at Gladstone, and I can't wait to collaborate with them," she said
.
"Compared to the big universities, I feel less like a statistic here than someone my colleagues care about
.
I want to start my teaching career here
.
"

She also enjoyed being at Gladstone, where she would be relieved from the many administrative burdens that come with an academic position
.

"Science comes first," she added
.
"I was impressed by the fact that Gladstone had so many professionals supporting me, from the editors who helped refine my grant application, to the people who raised funds for my great idea, they were all very efficient
.
"

A great idea for Tcheandjieu is to eventually create her own datasets instead of relying on existing data sources
.

"My career has only just begun, but what really excites me is finding a way to build a huge African biobank," she said
.

Africa is the most genetically diverse continent
.
Therefore, a platform that captures genetic diversity in Africa will provide greater opportunities to observe genetic changes that explain disease risk
.

But tchanandjieu doesn't intend to stop there
.
She also wants to create a biobank for Aboriginal and Indians
.

"These populations are widely studied and misrepresented, and the results are really bad for people in Black and Indigenous communities," she said
.
"I want to make sure they're properly represented in future genomic studies, and get the same results as others.
Human-like research benefits
.
”