The Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) from Egypt has become a full member of the International Consortium for Personalised Medicine (ICPerMed). It is the first organisation from Egypt to join ICPerMed, and the second from Africa, after the South Africa Medical Research -SAMRC- joining last year.
EU-Africa PerMed is supporting the integration of African organisations in ICPerMed as one of its main objectives. This will contribute to a successful implementation of Personalised Medicine in the global context, shortening existing health disparities between countries and regions and facilitating the access of African countries to new tools and technologies that have the potential to make healthcare more efficient and equitable.
The Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, ASRT, (http://www.asrt.sci.eg/). is a national coordinating body and funding organisation for research and innovation in Egypt. It serves as Egypt’s national house of expertise, and national think tank in the field of Science, Technology and Innovation. Egypt is shifting its approach from “one-size-fits all” to more personalised healthcare via advancing the practice of medical genetics and genomics across the country. The Reference Genome Project for Egyptians and Ancient Egyptians started in 2021 and has the aim to establish a benchmark genome center for creating the map of the Egyptian human genome to discover and accurately determine the genetic characteristics of various diseases aiming to help Egypt in entering the era of precision medicine. The Egyptian government is funding a total of 62,500,000 dollars for the first phase over 5 years (El-Attar EA, et al. 2022).
The International Consortium for Personalised Medicine ICPerMed was formally established in 2016, with the support of the European Commission (EC). It brings around 50 European and international partners representing ministries, funding agencies and the EC. Together, they work on coordinating and fostering research to develop and evaluate personalised medicine approaches. ICPerMed seeks to contribute to the reasonable and fair implementation of personalised medicine approaches into the health systems for the benefit of patients, citizens and society as a whole. More information about ICPerMed: https://www.icpermed.eu
References
El-Attar EA, Helmy Elkaffas RM, Aglan SA, Naga IS, Nabil A, Abdallah HY. Genomics in Egypt: Current Status and Future Aspects. Front Genet. 2022 May 13;13:797465. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2022.797465. PMID: 35664315; PMCID: PMC9157251.