Funding cuts threaten health research as AI offers new opportunities — Experts

By Ojoma Akor

Researchers have raised concerns about declining global funding for scientific research, particularly after cuts to United States research grants, but said the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) could help African researchers work more efficiently and sustain innovation.

The experts spoke at a press briefing ahead of the fourth annual symposium of the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN), where the theme will focus on navigating emerging challenges in research, including funding constraints and the responsible use of AI.

Executive Director of the International Research Center of Excellence (IRCE), Professor Alash’le Abimiku, said reduced research funding has become one of the major challenges confronting researchers globally, with African institutions particularly vulnerable because they rely on international grants.

She said reduced funding from the United States, traditionally one of the largest sources of research support through agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has significantly affected research activities.

“We have to look inwards. We have to look to the government. We have to look to the industry and to ourselves to see how we can do things more efficiently,” Abimiku said.

She, however, described AI as a “silver lining” that could help researchers do more with limited resources.

According to her, researchers must embrace AI while ensuring that it is used ethically, safely and responsibly.

“Our research activities must involve AI because we know that artificial intelligence, used ethically, safely and responsibly, would make you more efficient in everything that you do,” she said.

Abimiku said the symposium was designed to bring together researchers, government, industry, communities, young scientists and ethics experts to examine how Nigeria could strengthen its research ecosystem amid the changing funding landscape.

She said communities would have an opportunity to express concerns about the use of AI, while government and industry stakeholders would discuss sustainable ways to finance research.

She added that young researchers with AI expertise could share practical ways to apply the technology. At the same time, ethics experts would help address concerns around data sharing, confidentiality and responsible use.

‘AI is already supporting pandemic preparedness’

The Head of Research Operations at IRCE, Dr Sophia Osawe, said IHVN had already been applying AI and machine learning to public health through the Inform Africa project, which has been running for more than five years with support from the NIH.

She said the project brings together epidemiologists, scientists and engineers to develop tools that can help governments prepare for pandemics and identify communities requiring urgent interventions.

“When AI first came, I was very reluctant about it, but now I have embraced it because it makes my life better,” Osawe said.

She explained that the technology could help governments identify geographical areas where interventions such as vaccination were most urgently needed.

For example, AI-powered tools can analyze available data to identify disease hotspots, enabling health authorities to better target limited resources.

Osawe said IHVN and its partners also trained government officials to understand and use AI tools to design public health interventions.

Prof. Abimiku added that AI effectiveness depended heavily on the quality and completeness of the data fed into it.

She cited the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, noting that if some states failed to submit adequate data to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC), the resulting national picture would be incomplete.

“If Lagos is putting in their data to NCDC, Abuja is putting in data, Kano refuses to put in data, then you will have a picture in Nigeria that says Lagos and Abuja have a problem with COVID, but Kano doesn’t,” she said.

She said comprehensive data could also help health authorities identify communities with low vaccine acceptance and prioritize them for public education before introducing vaccines against emerging diseases such as Ebola and Lassa fever.

The same approach, she said, could identify communities more vulnerable to disasters such as flooding and determine where government assistance was most urgently needed.

Nigeria’s HIV strains key to vaccine development.

The researchers also highlighted IHVN’s contribution to international efforts to develop an effective HIV vaccine, particularly through the sequencing and characterization of HIV strains circulating in West Africa.

The Head of Molecular Diagnostics at IRCE, Dr James Onyemata, said an effective HIV vaccine would need to protect against the different viral subtypes circulating across regions.

He explained that IHVN was one of seven African institutions collaborating on an HIV vaccine development initiative and the only West African institution in the consortium.

According to him, researchers are identifying appropriate samples from people whose HIV infection timelines are known and using them to study the virus and contribute to potential vaccine candidates.

He said the work now includes whole-genome sequencing of HIV strains circulating in Nigeria.

“Whole-genome sequencing means sequencing the entire HIV subtype that we have here, and then taking that information and combining it with what will be obtained from other subtypes in Africa,” Onyemata said.

The information will help design and test potential vaccine candidates.

Onyemata stressed that Nigeria’s contribution was particularly important because of the country’s size and its epidemiological significance in West Africa.

“Nigeria is 50 percent of West Africa, so whatever we have that is circulating here is important for all of West Africa,” he said.

Prof. Abimiku also said the work addressed a longstanding gap in HIV vaccine research, saying that previous vaccine candidates had largely relied on viral strains from Europe, the United States and, more recently, southern and eastern Africa.

She noted that despite more than three decades of HIV vaccine research, the strains circulating in West Africa had been significantly underrepresented in vaccine constructs.

“We still don’t have an HIV vaccine 34 years later,” she said, adding that only a very small proportion of the viral strains used in previous vaccine constructs came from West Africa.

She said IHVN’s sequencing work would ensure that viruses circulating in Nigeria and other parts of West Africa were incorporated into vaccine research.

“This is the first time that we are now sequencing our own viruses to put them in the construct itself,” Abimiku said.

She added that although reduced research funding posed a significant challenge, researchers were seeking alternative funding streams and partnerships to ensure the work continued.

“We have another funding stream under Sante that we are making sure that the viruses across West Africa are also part and parcel of it,” she said.

The fourth annual IHVN symposium is expected to bring together researchers, policymakers, health professionals, communities, industry stakeholders and other partners to examine the future of health research in Nigeria amid funding constraints, rapid technological change and emerging public health threats.