Context :
Most African countries do not conduct research in structural biology due to limited resources, lack of trained people and brain drain of qualified scientists.
Thus WANECAM 2 and BIO-STRUCT organised a training workshop in Structural Biology in the Bioinformatics Room of DELGEME in Bamako, Mali from 25 to 28 April 2022. The opening ceremony was in the presence of the Rector of USTTB, Pr. Ouateni Diallo, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Odontostomatology, Pr. Seydou Doumbia, the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Pr. Boubacar Traoré and Pr. Abdoulaye Djimdé, Coordinator of WANECAM 2.
Objective:
BioStruct-Africa is a NGO that was established in 2017 with headquarters in Sweden. Its objective is to develop Structural Biology skills on the African continent.
This workshop aimed to provide the participants with basic techniques on the theoretical basis of the crystallization of molecules, and the importance of synchrotron radiation for data acquisition.
The four days of training were marked by a series of presentations and practical work in the laboratories of MRTC-Parasito.
The workshop provided participants with knowledge on how structural biology can be used to find solutions to prevalent diseases in Africa, an overview of drug target selection, protein production and purification, structural determination techniques and analysis in combination with high-throughput, structure-guided and fragment-based drug design.
The organisers were congratulated on this success.
For more information on the workshop please click on this link