A National DNA Bank in The Gambia, West Africa
The Laboratory of Human Genetics at MRC The Gambia houses the Gambian National DNA bank, which is the first National DNA bank developed in Africa. To date over 40,000 DNA samples have been collected, with many ongoing studies, and more planned. The bank is regulated by guidelines for sample collection, archiving, data storage and privacy protection, which were developed and approved by the Medical Research Council in UK, the MRC Laboratories Scientific Coordinating Committee (SCC) and by the Gambia Government / MRC Joint Ethics Committee (EC). The Guidelines, which are enforced by these Committees, stemmed from the need to adapt to the local reality the many existing recommendations on bio-banking, privacy protection, genetics research and, generally, on medical research in developing countries. The bank has a special focus on malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis. Additional projects include analyses of genome diversity in West African populations and a collection of twinning-sister pairs to study the genetic basis of dizygotic twinning. In The Gambia the twinning rate is very high, about 2% of live births are twins (more than 70% of these are dizygous twins), and although environmental factors could be involved, genetics is likely to play a major role. To map and identify the twinning gene or genes 600 twinning sister-pairs samples have already been sampled. The Gambian twinning-sisters collection represents a unique and naturally controlled population sample which could be key to the dissection of genetic from epigenetic factors involved in determining dizygotic twinning.