USA injects 600,000 dollars in training 72 Nigerian scholars

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the United States of America (USA) has injected a 600,000-dollar grant to train 72 Nigerian scholars on data science and medical image analysis.

Prof. Benjamin Aribisala, Programme Director/Prinicipal Investigator, Data Science and Medical Image Analysis Training (DATICAN) in Nigeria, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.

The initiative is aimed at supporting improved healthcare delivery in Nigeria.

NIH partnered with the University of Chicago and three universities in Nigeria through the DATICAN project to build the capacity of scholars in the medical and computer science fields.

Aribisala named the partnering universities in Nigeria for the project as: Lagos State University (LASU), the University of Ibadan, and Redeemer’s University.

He said that intensive training for the participants began on April 4 at the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM) and ended on Tuesday, while the project is expected to run for the next three years.

According to him, the USA, about five years ago, discovered a gap in the area of human resources and expertise in data science, most especially its applications to the medical domain.

“Generally, in Africa, technology and skills in data science to improve healthcare delivery are still lacking, hence the introduction of an initiative on data science.

“The initiative is to fund Africa as a continent by building capacity by training professionals to acquire skills in data science and apply them in healthcare delivery.

“The four benefiting universities formed a team and keyed into the initiative in 2022 by developing a proposal to the NIH, which was approved in September 2023, he said.

According to him, the programme is specialized training for postgraduate students undergoing a Masters programme, PhD students, PhD holders in academics, and secondary school students to build their layers of skills.

The programme director, representing LASU, said that the secondary school students are trained on coding to encourage them to do it when they graduate from the university.

Aribisala, also a professor of computer science, said that the NIH paid for the tuition of the Masters and PhD students in their respective schools, while the PhD holders get stipends to develop their careers and publish papers.

“Some of the scholars are already working on stroke, some on autism and traumatic brain injury, among others, and are expected to publish a paper and develop a tool that will be useful for the country,” he said.

The professor explained that the trainers from the University of Chicago also attended the programme to train the participants.

He said the project was designed as a train-the-trainers programme.

Aribisala said following the concluding training, some appointed trainers from Nigeria would go to the University of Chicago by the end of April to receive special training and develop their skills, which would be passed on to the other participants.

He expressed concern that Nigeria lacked a database for medical images; hence, the participants of the project were expected by NIH to develop a repository or local image database to address the Nigerian health challenge.

The professor stated that DATICAN had begun talks with the Ministry of Health on its mission, and the ministry had also pledged its support for the project and to possibly sustain it.

Dr. Shofoluwe Adeniji, DATICAN Principal Investigator for the University of Ibadan, described the initiative as an excellent collaboration that was long overdue to help Nigeria develop its repository of medical images.

Adeniji, also a consultant radiologist, stated that Nigeria had been losing a lot of its data to developed countries.

He said that the programme would encourage young researchers to build their capacity for multi-disciplinary approaches to research.

She said, ”It is commendable that researchers from different specialties come together to solve problems that are locally relevant to our people.”

A participant, Mr. Michael Alu, a PhD student in Computer Science at the Redeemer’s University, said it had been a fantastic experience since he joined the DATICAN community in September 2023.

Alu stated that he had learned a lot about medical image analysis through the programme and hoped to publish papers on noble ideas and knowledge that would help the medical community.