GENETICS BRIEF REPORT Strengthening human genetics research in Africa: report of the 9th meeting of the African Society of Human Genetics in Dakar in May 2016 R. Ndiaye Diallo 1† , M. Gadji 1† , B. J. Hennig 2 , M. V. Guèye 1 , A. Gaye 3 , J. P. D. Diop 1 , M. Sylla Niang 1 , P. Lopez Sall 1 , P. M. Guèye 1 , A. Dem 1 , O. Faye 1 , A. Dieye 1 , A. Cisse 1 , M. Sembene 1 , S. Ka 1 , N. Diop 1 , S. M. Williams 4 , E. Matovu 5 , R.S. Ramesar 6 , A. Wonkam 6 , M. Newport 7 , C. Rotimi 3 and M. Ramsay 8 * 1 Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal 2 London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK 3 National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA 4 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Institute of Computational Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA 5 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda 6 Division of Human Genetics, Department of Pathology, Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa 7 Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS), Farmer, Brighton, UK 8 Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience and Division of Human Genetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Global Health, Epidemiology and Genomics (2017), 2, e10, page 1 of 5. doi:10.1017/gheg.2017.3 The 9th meeting of the African Society of Human Genetics, in partnership with the Senegalese Cancer Research and Study Group and the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Consortium, was held in Dakar, Senegal. The theme was Strengthening Human Genetics Research in Africa. The 210 delegates came from 21 African countries and from France, Switzerland, UK, UAE, Canada and the USA. The goal was to highlight genetic and genomic science across the African continent with the ultimate goal of improving the health of Africans and those across the globe, and to promote the careers of young African scientists in the field. A session on the sustainability of genomic research in Africa brought to light innovative and practical approaches to sup- porting research in resource-limited settings and the importance of promoting genetics in academic, research funding, governmen- tal and private sectors. This meeting led to the formation of the Senegalese Society for Human Genetics. Le 9 ème congrès de la Société Africaine de Génétique Humaine, en partenariat avec le Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche sur le Cancer (GERC) et le Consortium H3Africa, s’est tenu à Dakar, au Sénégal. Le thème était «Renforcer la recherche en Génétique Humaine en Afrique». Les 210 participants sont venus de 21 pays africains et de six non africains. L’objectif était de valoriser la génétique et la génomique à travers l’Afrique avec comme but ultime d’améliorer la santé des popula- tions, et de promouvoir les carrières des jeunes chercheurs Africains. Une session sur la pérennité de la recherche génomique a révélé des approches innovantes et pratiques supportant la recherche dans des contextes de ressources limitées et l’importance de promouvoir la formation universitaire en génétique, le financement de la recherche par les gou- vernements et le privé. Ce congrès conduisit à la création de la Société Sénégalaise de Génétique Humaine. Received 12 March 2017; Revised 12 March 2017; Accepted 20 March 2017 Key words: African Genetic Research, African Society of Human Genetics, Dakar, Meeting report. † These authors contributed equally to this work. * Address for correspondence: M. Ramsay, Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of the Witwatersrand, 9 Jubilee Road, Parktown, 2050 Johannesburg, South Africa. (Email: michele.ramsay@wits.ac.za) © The Author(s) 2017. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, pro- vided the original work is properly cited. global health, epidemiology and genomics https://doi.org/10.1017/gheg.2017.3 Published online by Cambridge University Press