BOL

Covenant University (CU)­Ota:
Covenant University (with her enriching and growing state­of­the­art laboratories in the area of  science and technology, arts, business and social sciences) is presently the Best University in  Nigeria (Private University category), based on the recent over­all rating just concluded by the  Nigeria   University   Commission   (NUC).   Recently,   Covenant   University   has   initiated   the  establishment of a Centre for Applied Biotech, Bio­Informatics and Microbiology (CBBM) to be  situated at the University. The institute has been designed to be a Public­Private Partnership for a productive synergy b/w Academia, Industry and Government. The whole concept is still evolving  and more details will be release soon. As regards CBBM, a dedicated computing lab is in plan, but even our computing capacity is  presently enormous. In the department of Computer and Information Sciences, we have more than  250 Pentium 4 PCs set aside for teaching and research purposes. Furthermore, we have several  moderate speed PCs at the Postgraduate research lab and our engineering departments and units.  Our wet lab facilities is presently minimal (basic for teaching), the Centre requirement as it touches  the wet­laboratories is also set to upgrade this to basic tools expected at an international centre of learning.

University of Ibadan (UIB)­Ibadan: There has been significant increase in the number of bioinformatics activities in Nigeria (and West  Africa) since 2003 when the program was initiated by the West African Biotechnology Workshops  Series (WABWS, http://www.wabw.org) at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (in collaboration with  the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI, http:/www.sanbi.ac.za). Workshops  that were open to scientists from all African countries have seen a very high number of applications  from scientists based in West Africa. The encouraging desire to acquire cutting­edge skills to  computational process data and extract useful knowledge from genome projects led to the interest of  the West African Biotechnology Workshops (WABW) to develop an agenda to address the  bioinformatics skills gap among scientists in West Africa. An increased commitment from agencies  like NEPAD would be required in the provision of infrastructure to establish and sustain regional  and national networks.

University of Ilorin (UIL)­Ilorin: The University of Ilorin was established in 1976 by the Federal Government of Nigeria.  Bioinformatics activities started at the University in February 2003 with the establishment of the  West African Bioinformatics Research Initiative (WABRI). However, progress has been rather slow  due to inadequate funding. We are mainly engaged in Bioinformatics training at the introductory  level and proteomics studies on various species of malaria parasites. Recently, we became interested  in comparative genome analysis of various species of  Plasmodium  and the comparison of  chloroquine sensitive and chloroquine resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum. Other activities  and areas of interest can be seen on our website, http://www.wabri.org, although not all our  proposed interests have been fully implemented due to our level of funding.

Training:
The University of Ilorin has introduced M.Sc. and Ph.D. programmes in Computer Science (with  options in Bioinformatics). The programme is based in the Department of Computer Science and  emphasis is on the development of algorithms to solve problems in bioinformatics. The Covenant University offers M.Sc. and Ph.D in Computer Science with option in Bioinformatics  (Computational Biology). Furthermore, through affiliated departments, the CBBM is been design to award Diploma and Degree certificates in Biotechnology.

Web sites and links: http://www.covenantuniversity.com http://www.run.edu.ng http://www.uniben.edu http://www.wabri.org http://www.wabw.org http://www.unilorin.edu.ng http://www.wabri.org http://www.asopah.org