Enriching African genome representation through the AGenDA project

The project originated from a discussion in the Genome Analysis Working Group of H3Africa and supported by the National Institutes of Health NHGRI and coordinator of the H3Africa consortium, who helped us successfully navigate the intricacies of the project. Each of the participating centres generously contributed time, expertise and samples collected under other projects, and persevered through delays and many difficulties. We are grateful for their perseverance. This study would not have been possible without the hard work of the fieldworkers, managers, scientists and students at each of our institutions, and we are grateful to the participants who agreed to be part of our study. The AWI-Gen Collaborative Center and its supplements were funded by the NHGRI, grant number U54HG006938 as part of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa Consortium. Each partner leveraged funding for data collection, and these will be acknowledged in individual publications. The funders were not involved in the study’s design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, drafting the report, and did not restrict the publication of the research. A.C. and D.S. were also supported by National Institutes of Health grants (U01HG011717 and U01HL172182). The National Research Foundation of South Africa funded the collection, transport and DNA extractions with the African Origin Platforms grant 136511 to M.E.D. and N.F. Thuthuka grant TK190408428442 to M.K. Gates Foundation, grant investment ID INV-036801, supported some of the AGenDA work in Zimbabwe.