Second meeting of the NEPAD/NABNet T2D_Diabetes initiative

Project title:

“Multidisciplinary investigation of the genetic risk factors of type II Diabetes (T2D) and its complications in North Africa ”

15-16 September 2009, Pasteur Institute, Tunis , (IPT) Tunisia

 The meeting took place in IPT. It was attended by Sonia Mediene From Oran Es Senia University, Ghana Mint Meiloud from Nouakchott University , and from Tunisia Dr Sonia Abdelhak, Dr Rym Kefi, Dr Imen Arfa, Mr Nizar Ben Halim, Mrs Sonia Chakroun, Mr Khaled Lasram.

This follow up meeting of the NABNet Diabetes group Activity was held through taking the opportunity of the presence in Tunis of scientists from Algeria and Mauritania . In fact Mrs Mint Meiloud is there for a period of 3 months training starting from 9 August in Tunis , and Dr Mediene is there for various purposes Including "exchange of DNA samples, exchange of purchased material, planning the work and mobility for the next period, finalizing the progress scientific and financial reports"

The agenda of the meeting was dealing with analyses of the progress in the implementation of the T2D project and assessment of the involvement of the participant teams and anticipating the activities and plan of action for the next months of 2009. During the meeting, managerial aspects including technical and financial reporting, and mobility in the group including the training session on Biostatistics have been addressed.

Dr Abdelhak welcomed the participants to the meeting and presented the progress achieved in terms of implementing the workplan as agreed in the project. She explained the delays as a consequence of some difficulties in implementing the basic tasks of the projects namely establishing the collection according to the standard conditions and processing exchanges of DNA in the region, and gathering the technical conditions for genotyping. Dr Abdelhak however stressed on the fact that the already achieved work of establishing collections in each country and gathering the information and data relating to the samples, and exchange of DNA samples and expertise among partners, and ongoing analysis of results and achieved technical progress, can be considered as major important achievements.

The network director recalled that the T2D diabetes according to the evaluation of NABNet program based on the 2008 activity, was perceived as a very good project. However some problems have arisen during this year as per the follow up of the workplan, which demonstrated that there are many challenges facing the progress of the project. The ND enumerated the difficulties as follows:

1)Even if there was some material and MTAs exchange fulfilled among teams, other teams didn’t show evidence of establishing their own collections, or didn’t make exchanges with others for various reasons. Those who will not achieve this milestone with pace will prevent themselves from starting the following tasks of the project.

2)Even if there was a lot of information relating to the collections established (clinical, anthropometric, lifestyle, genealogic etc.) gathered, there was little results provided through the reports. This lack can be solved by analyzing urgently the available data, and updating the reports with the missing results.

3)In genetic profiling, in spite of the progress made there is a delay in terms of analyzing all the genes planned. It is very urgent to fulfill the lacking activities relating to this issue by the concerned teams to be able to start the next tasks.

Among the participants to this meeting a fruitful discussion took place and common understandings can be summarized as follows:

1)ownership by all the involved North African organizations of T2D project according to common understanding of the participants since the start of the project. This means in particular that the contribution of CIDA/NEPAD Fund is to strengthen interaction, but not to provide the basic requirements, nor to offer means for sustainability.

2)awareness of the organizations about their role in developing leadership and solidarity in the region. It should be mentioned that Pasteur Institute of Tunis beyond its coordinating role of the project, it is playing an important and helpful role of financial management and marketing of the project to the benefit of the whole T2D consortium. IPT is using the resources of T2D through a very cost effective way to the benefit of the teams and mobilizing further funds including from Tunisia-Morocco bilateral frame, and liaising with COMSTECH network, and developing international connections… The other T2D organizations will gain much from acknowledging, helping, complementing and imitating the role played by IPT.

3)strengthening the youth involvement and leading role. This vision was fortunately agreed since the inception phase of T2D project and implemented through the various phases. This has to be given a very high priority in the coming phase in particular for the gene profiling analysis and the biostatistics training session. The bioinformatics training session is agreed to take place during 23-24 November 2009 in IPT with input from Dr Ahmed Rebai and his team from Centre of Biotechnology of Sfax. Meanwhile DNA exchange should be finished. The real time PCR will be borrowed by Oran univ from Applied Biosystems, may be for the period 15 Oct-15 Nov 09. Consequently October should be used to finish the exchanges of DNA so the biostatics training session will use the whole regional data collection during 23-24 Nov.

4)Planning the future. The project was conceived as part of a long term regional strategy. In this vision, ownership, awareness and youth involvement are musts for developing the expected regional skill and capacity. A special care should be dedicated by the T2D consortium to the resources generated by the project (Data bases, DNA and blood collections, results generated…). These resources will be the result of the contribution of all the participants, and then all the participants should make sure that they will use these resources according the IPRs rules and deontology. On the other side, and to exploit the joint efforts and to build confidence, the participants are much encouraged to produce common knowledge and to appear and introduce themselves as a regional coherent research group.

This report and the enclosed recommendations are part of a process by which the ND and the T2D Parties commit themselves to implement a series of measures to strengthen the progress of T2D project and to prepare it for the long term purposes.

Feed back from all T2D participants will be highly appreciated

Tunis 21 September 2009

Mohamed Elarbi Aouani