Empowering Nigerians in Data Science to Transform Medical Health
Human health conditions have been a significant global concern. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the mortality rate of Cardiovascular diseases is 17.9 Million per year, over 1 billion people are hypertensive, about 422 million people have diabetes and Breast Cancer is predicted to be 3 Million per year by 2050. Majority of these diseases are prevalent in low and middle-income countries like Nigeria. Manual diagnosis of diseases could lead to wrong diagnosis, delayed diagnosis and also subjectivity. With shifting disease patterns in Africa, significant deficits in Medical Personnel to help Diagnose conditions are anticipated. The automation of these Diagnostic tasks using Computational methods will help close the projected care gap. Currently, there is a critical need for Medical AI. Data Scientists to train, curate, and maintain these computational Medical tools.
Development of computational techniques for medical diagnosis and biomarkers requires expertise in data science, medical science and software development. Experts in these fields and other allied fields are making great efforts in the developed world, but similar efforts are very poor in Nigeria because of limited expertise in data science and its application in medical image analysis. This gap in manpower in data science in Nigeria motivated the formation of DATICAN team and the focus is to build capacity in Data Science and Medical Image Analysis.
DATICAN was formed by 4 Universities, Lagos State University (LASU), University of Chicago, University of Ibadan and Redeemer's University.
The program director and lead principal investigator for DATICAN is Professor Benjamin ARIBISALA of Lagos State University (LASU), Other principal investigators of DATICAN are Professor Funmilayo OLOPADE (Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine) of the University of Chicago, Professor Alexander PEARSON of the University of Chicago, Professor Abiodun ADEWUYA of Lagos State College of Medicine, Lagos State University (LASU), Professor Godwin OGBOLE of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Professor Steffen SAMMET of the University of Chicago, Dr. Adenike ADENIJI-SOFOLUWE of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Professor Samson AREKETE of the Redeemer's University, and Dr. Ravi MADDURI of Argonne National Lab. and University of Chicago.
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