Wonder Science Centre In Yobe

By Mahmud Jega

Africa and the world has known at least since the discovery in 1987 of the 8,000-year-old Dufuna canoe, the oldest such canoe ever found in Africa, that human civilization is old and glorious in Yobe State. However, many Nigerians, Africans and the world are just finding out that glorious cutting-edge scientific research is also domiciled in Yobe. What with the official commissioning by Governor Mai Mala Buni in Damaturu on Thursday last week, January 29th, of the permanent site of the Biomedical Science Research and Training Center [BioRTC], affiliated to the Yobe State University.

No wonder it left scientists, researchers, journalists and foreign visitors gasping with excitement. In four years since its inception, BioRTC is leading one of the most comprehensive investigations into chronic kidney disease in Nigeria, focusing on Yobe State’s Bade Emirate.  A multidisciplinary team of over 50 experts from Nigeria, Ghana, UK and USA has collected over 3,000 samples, of human blood and urine as well as environmental samples of soil, farm produce and water from rivers and boreholes at varying depths. Early findings pointing towards environmental factors, including water contamination, are already coming in. This research, when concluded, will provide a scientifically valid explanation to the problem of kidney diseases and guide evidence-based solutions. All according to the center’s director, Prof Mahmoud Bukar Maina.

Maina also listed the designing and building of a new class of cheaper, more versatile and battery-powered open-science microscopes suitable for field deployment, including for malaria diagnosis. BioRTC, Prof said, is now the home of Africa’s first open-access induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) biobank, “a continental asset that allows diseases and treatments to be studied using African-derived biological systems.” The center is also leading Nigeria’s most deeply characterised dementia research cohort, addressing Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders in African populations. In addition, its international summer schools and training programmes, personally encouraged by Governor Buni, has since 2022, trained over 1,000 scientists in bio imaging, infectious diseases, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience.

Then also, in partnership with University of Maiduguri, has been established the BioRTC–UNIMAID MSc and PhD Neuroscience Programme, “the first structured postgraduate neuroscience programme of its kind in Nigeria, and only the second in Africa after University of Cape Town.” “This allows Nigerian students and lecturers to receive world-class training here in Yobe, using advanced infrastructure, real patient-relevant research questions, and international supervision, without having to leave the country.” America’s Janelia Research Campus recently described Yobe State as “a transformative model for addressing scientific and developmental needs in underdeveloped regions.”

Governor Buni, who commissioned the center, said Yobe State Government spent 800 million naira to build it, on top of the N10 billion worth of equipment and materials that Prof Maina brought to the center, when he first proposed it to the governor. Buni described BioRTC as “a scientific asset that will enable research that is more inclusive, more accurate and more relevant to our people because, for too long, Africa has been subjected to rely on medical and other researches that are conducted in different climes, environments, cultures and lifestyles without recourse to our peculiarities and genetic diversity.” He praised the center for establishing Africa’s first major induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) bio bank, for leading the establishment of one of Nigeria’s most ambitious and deeply characterized dementia research cohorts, which he said will place Nigeria on the global map in Alzheimer’s disease and brain health research.

Buni lamented that for many decades, several communities along the banks of River Yobe were plagued by Chronic Kidney Disease. This, he said, has been a major driving force to the center’s establishment, following his visit to UK in 2023 to seek partnership with international research institutes for BioRTC’s smooth take-off.

This epic research and training center owes its wondrous debut to the visionary proposal and personal sacrifice of Prof Mahmoud Bukar Maina, who abandoned his rich professional practice abroad in order to come home, and to the quick visionary, forward-looking acceptance and deep personal commitment of Mai Mala Buni. For his efforts in this direction, Governor Buni was honoured by the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa (SONA) in Morocco, which inducted him into its Hall of Fame for advancing neuroscience and tackling kidney diseases in Africa. He has already made dialysis support available to Yobe citizens and will establish, this year, an additional dialysis centre in Gashua, “to save patients of kidney disease from travelling long distances to access care.” He then urged federal government to establish a Federal Kidney Disease Center in Yobe State to address the major scourge and also urged Federal Ministry of Health to partner BioRTC for open, low-cost diagnostics on malaria microscopy and other related community-level diagnostic programmes.

Many people once thought of Yobe State as open Sahelian land, with a historic canoe find and with its northern fringes infested by roving Boko Haram bands. Not anymore; not when the world’s top neuro and other scientists congregate in Damaturu to find African-centered solutions to dementia and kidney diseases.