Genetic diversity

So we focus on trout, redfish, and flounder.

And what our facility does is we get broodstock fish from the wild to ensure genetic diversity.

We bring them into the hatchery.

We put them on what we call a photothermal cycle and get them to spawn, collect the eggs, raise them up for a little while, release them back into the wild.

But all of our brood stock are wild caught.

We rotate them about every five years.

We rotate the males and females each year, as Cody mentioned, for genetic diversity.

And then the whole tank of fish is released every five years.

But there's a bigger question here.

What if Africa's genetic diversity, disease patterns and scientific talent were not simply part of the data used by global pharmaceutical research, but also central to where new medicines are discovered? And can Africa help move from being merely a consumer of medicines to being a major creator of them? And what will it take to make that happen? And can African scientists build the data, skills, laboratories and investment needed to turn this opportunity into a lasting pharmaceutical ecosystem? Those are some of the questions we are going to look at today.

And to help us understand where this transformation could be heading, I'm joined virtually by Professor Kelly Shibali.

Mr. Shibali is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Cape Town and the founding director of the university's H3D Drug Discovery and Development Center.

But thankfully, artificial intelligence plus the human aspect of it, like you have emphasized, could at least make this a little bit easier.

I know that you have given us quite details on how you go about these things.

If you could give us why you think accounting for African genetic diversity is very important when ensuring that these treatments that you are making with the use of machine learning are both safe and effective.

So first of all, before I even ask that question, is to say this to the listeners.

Rare, priority, then we have at risk, and then any other native breeds.

And they're determined by assessments of a range of factors, including breed registration, data, trend lines, geographic distribution, genetic diversity, and threat from diseases.

So within our rare and priority categories, we have different breeds of sheep, cattle, equine, goat, pig and poultry.

Some of our more at risk breeds currently for this year are the Eriscae Pony, the Hackney Horson Pony, Ancient Cattle of Wales, Gloucester Cattle, North Ronaldsey Sheep, Sawyer sheep, Boreray sheep, large black pig, British lot pig and then we have all the all other native poultry breeds including Scots dumpy, Scots grey chickens, Shetland ducks and Shetland geese.

So we have herd books and we have flock books for registration data from breed societies and breeders.

Other data is recorded through information and assessments by keepers and breeders and breed societies.

As I say, we do scientific research into factors such as genetic diversity and we also get a lot of our data from DEFRA.

So each year we then combine that data and from then we're able to see on a year-to-year basis if a breed status has moved up or down depending on the numbers for a certain breed, but we also take into account certain measures of inbreeding in the rarer breeds and the rarer populations, because obviously if it's going to be incredibly rare, the gene pool is not going to be as varied as some other breeds.

But in general, you have male and female plants and very much so male and female animals.

Now, why is that? I submit this is for genetic diversity.

Think of your chromosomes as decks of cards.

Now, if you only had... cards from one parent, eventually mistakes would enter.

but it is true that our genetics are to some extent destiny.

So let's talk a little bit about taboo.

So why is it taboo to have incest? Well, because there's lack of genetic diversity.

Let's say you're in an isolated population.