New advances in genetic mapping and manipulation hold the promise of reshaping medical treatments in the 21st century, but thanks to a lack of sufficient infrastructure and apparent scientific disregard, an entire continent is at risk of being left out.
Only 2% of genetic material used for pharmaceutical research comes from the African continent, while genetic data on caucasians makes up 90% of the data and samples available. This is despite the fact that Africans and people of African ancestry are more genetically diverse than all of the other populations in the world combined.
