The Nation Newspaper

Tag: DNA

  • How the Lagos DNA milestone can change Nigeria

    As a little boy, investigating a complex situation was my hobby.  My contact with James Hadley Chase fuelled my passion and made me his addict. I remember a maverick character, Poke Tokolo in one of Chase’s epic novels. He was notorious for surgical crimes that shook his community. The way the detectives in that book diligently carried out their inquiry was a marvel. On a practical note, coming to Lagos for the first time from my remote village, one incident shattered my psychology. It was in 1981. I lived with an uncle on Adetayo Osho Street, Akoka. One late evening, I heard a chorus from men and women who marched through the street. A naked woman was put at the stake. The riotous crowd heckled and jeered at her. Every few seconds, she would be clubbed to the appalling cheers of the riotous mob.

    Coming from a village, it was the most graphic illustration of inhumanity I had ever encountered. I told my uncle that he should know we do not treat an offending dog.  I felt a cold shiver run through my spinal cord. But he merely shrugged, because such was a common sight in Lagos of that era. The beautiful, middle-aged woman had been mobbed at a street party. They stripped her naked. Her anatomy was clearly visible under the glowing street lights. Intermittently, someone would come forward and pierce her private part with a long stick. I lost my mental composure. Eventually, the crowd did the unthinkable. She was thrown into a dingy canal shortly before the Adetayo-Fola Agoro junction. Each time I drive through till date, I flinch.

    The second day, homicide detectives came for the floated corpse. They asked questions. But no arrests were made for want of evidence. I later learnt her offence was that she ‘confessed’ she was a witch. But this was after she had gulped several bottles of gin on rock.  After her ‘confession’, the stand-by crowd pounced on her and tore her dress into shreds. I heard her little son of less than 10, cried and wailed. The pitiless mob was deaf to reason. Her killers were never found though a DNA analysis would have fished out the murderers.

    There is a salient but significant event in Lagos.  It should change the landscape of Nigeria for good. Like a bolt from the blues, the government of Lagos State announced the setting up of Nigeria’s first DNA laboratory.  It is a shame that a country of 170 million people, with all the national wealth, has no functional DNA lab.  For public information, DNA carries all of the information for physical characteristics, which are essentially determined by proteins. Experts say in DNA, each protein is encoded by a gene (a specific sequence of DNA nucleotides that specify how a single protein is to be made). To me, it was a remarkable if not revolutionary intervention in many areas of livelihood in a city of no fewer than 18 million people. This lab, if put in excellent use, will change the social and scientific content of Nigeria. It will transform crime detection, help fight corruption, resolve paternity issues, assist local drug companies and research institutions to identify causes of diseases and proffer solutions. It will save capital flight and public health. This lab can actually put an end to the Fulani herdsmen menace because it will make it easy to identify perpetrators of heinous crimes.

    • Adewale Adeoye

    Executive Director, Journalists for Democratic Rights, (JODER), Lagos.

  • Lagos opens first DNA forensic lab

    •Offers free legal service for Int’l Day of Peace

    Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Adeniji Kazeem, has said the Lagos State Government has completed the construction of the first ever high-powered DNA Forensic Laboratory in Nigeria.

    Kazeem spoke at the weekend in Ikeja at the kick-off of activities to mark the 2017 United Nations (UN) International Day of Peace.

    Last year, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode approved the construction of the laboratory as part of the criminal justice sector reforms designed to solve crime through technology.

    The state government also intended to fulfil an unmet need for DNA profiling which is a unique forensic technique used all over the world.

    Kazeem said skeletal work had already commenced in the lab known as the Lagos State DNA Forensics Centre (LSDFC), and that it would be formally commissioned in the coming weeks.

    Kazeem, who was represented at the briefing by the Solicitor-General and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Mrs Funlola Odunlami, explained that the lab was part of efforts geared toward enhancing peace in the state.

    “The DNA forensic centre just opened this month. We are yet to commission it but it has been opened and it is a DNA crime forensic lab and at the same time, it is going to deal with other DNA matters like paternity issue. What we are doing now is skeletal work which we started this month,” Kazeem said.

    He recalled that since 2007, the state, through the Citizens’ Mediation Centre (CMC), an agency under the Ministry of Justice, had collaborated with the United Nations Information Office to mark the International Day of Peace.

    Kazeem said: “The importance which the state government attaches to peaceful conduct of businesses, hospitality, tourism among others informed the establishment of agencies that will attend to matters relating to land grabbers, Special Task Force, donation of police vehicles for security, introduction of DNA forensic laboratory to archive blood samples of criminals, among other laudable initiatives.”

    He revealed that the Citizens Mediation Centre (CMC) will provide free legal services and mediation today and tomorrow to celebrate the International Day of Peace which is marked worldwide every September 21.

    The free legal advice and mediation would be rendered to residents of the Ikorodu Road axis and Ibeju-Lekki.

    This year’s event tagged “Together for peace: Respect, safety and dignity for all,” will be rounded off on September 21, with the 18th Stakeholders’ Conference and Book Launch at the Adeyemi Bero Auditorium in Alausa.

    CMC Director, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Odusanya, said the centre has been adopting a consultative approach in resolving all the issues brought before it such that all parties involved feel satisfied with the resolution of the centre.

  • How is digital transformation changing the medical profession?

    With robots and algorithms taking over healthcare, what does the future hold for medical practitioners?

    The future of personal healthcare goes something like this. An asthma patient wakes up and looks at their smartphone. ‘Good morning,’ it says, ‘how is your breathing?’ The patient logs a few answers that are sent to their doctor and stored on a server, which then analyses trends and triggers an alert if something is abnormal.

    Doctors can provide more personalised service by being able to drill down into specific information to find root causes and triggers, and provide an accurate diagnosis.They also don’t need to physically wade through tons of research, test results and patient records.

    Now,I’m not a doctor, but I would imagine that medical professionals enter the field because they want to help people and are interested in physiology and anatomy; not because they dream of going through masses of paperwork. Yet for many doctors this is a reality, and focusing on the patient is sometimes difficult.

    Nurses too, are often weighed down by admin and a myriad of regulationsrather than patient care. But digital transformation is changing this. From systems that automatically track a patient’s history, DNA and medical records,to virtual screenings, there are a host of benefitsbeyond simplyreducing paperwork.

    Internet of Things making patients smarter
    Most digital transformation in the medical space is driven by the Internet of Things, which is enabling patients to perform their own tests at home. For example, blood sugar information can be fed to a database via a connected skin patch worn by a diabetic. In fact, the healthcare Internet of Things market segment is poised to hit $117 billion by 2020.

    Another example is CellScope, which connects to a user’s smartphone enabling them to carry out low-cost scans of moles, rashes and ear infections. These images are sent to a medical practitioner and stored on a server, which processes the scan and detects abnormal patterns. Soon patients will be able to perform their own ECG tests at home. Most heart disease is identified only after patients have heart attacks, but with people performing their own tests it not only lowers the cost and barrier to entry for an expensive procedure, but machine learning can identify and predict episodes before they happen.

    In Cameroon, Cardiopadis able to perform heart screenings with a tablet device, and Matibabu in Uganda enables people to diagnose malaria using a finger clip connected to their smartphone. The clip uses light and magnetism to analyse blood cell composition.
    In the Middle East,AlemHealth enables people with periodic access to healthcare to have a scan at an AlemHealth centre, which gets sent to a community of world-class specialists around the world.

    So where does this leave medical professionals?

    Having all of this data is one thing, but doctors still don’t have time to be buried in it. It is predicted that there will be a need for medical data planners, or case managers, whose job it is to understand the data and liaise with patients. The physician will take on more of a supervisory role,rather than provide direct care. Doctors may appear less at the bedside with nurses likely to go back to the principal role of care providers. And now, smart devices can make a nurse’s job much easier. For example, there was a time when a nurse’s constant focus would be to ensure a steady flow of an IV. Now IVs are electronically monitored and errors are automatically sent to the nurse’s device via remote monitoring.

    Like doctor like computer
    Some in the field suggest that much of what a doctor does can in fact be replaced by computers. A doctor is required to think like a computer: Analysing information from tests, data on diseases andpatient history. Then, aftertaking all these factors into account,they perform a diagnosis. With sensors enabling patients to log their own test results and cloud serversto digest all thedata, computers can perform diagnoses much quicker.

    The future of health relies on the notion of Artificial Intelligence (AI), or the capability of IT systems to sense the world, comprehend, act and learn. A computer can easily digest 5,000 research articles on diabetes while a human’scognitive limitations prevent them from remembering the 10,000+ diseases humans can get.

    Already in the airline industry, computers are able to do the job of a pilot where human judgement is required. Market traders are making use of algorithms to predict the stock market, and self-driving cars are starting to show zero incidents. Computers can and will start making accurate diagnoses. Already, a study by Lifecom showed thatclinical trials,with medical assistants using a diagnostic knowledge engine, were 91% accurate without using labs, imaging, or exams.

    We’re entering a new era where digital experiences mirror the way people interact with one another and we move from a world where we must understand computers to one where they understand us and our intent and can be proactive. Systems of intelligence will endemically transform the way we innovate and transform for improved outcomes and the way we optimise clinical and operational processes. People across the healthcare continuum are able to collaborate and use machine learning to come up with ways to improve outcomes for patients.

    However, computers can’t replace the emotional nuances, the judgement calls, and the complex and intuitive nature involved in patient care, which goes further than processing data. Physicians will just need to enhance their digital skills and work hand in hand with technology. Already a surgeon’s principal tool is no longer a knife. They have to operate alongside computer consoles and robotic wrists, while watching a high-resolution screen.

    It’s a reality, and an exciting one. The future of healthcare looks bright, with smart, accurate and accessible care that frees up medicalprofessionals to do what they set out to in the first place.

  • Early humans co-existed in Africa with human-like species

    Scientists unveiled the first evidence on Tuesday that early humans co-existed in Africa 300,000 years ago with a small-brained human-like species thought to already be extinct on the continent at that time.

    The findings, published in three papers in the journal “eLife”, raise fresh questions about human evolution, including the prospect that behaviours previously attributed to humans may have been developed by hominin precursors of Homo sapiens.

    Hominins are an extinct group of the same genus as humans, the only surviving members of that category today. Man’s nearest living relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, are further removed from Homo sapiens biologically than hominins are.

    The species in question is Homo naledi, named in 2015 after a rich cache of its fossils was unearthed near Sterkfontein and Swartkrans in South Africa.

    These treasure troves, some 50 km (30 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, have yielded pieces of the puzzle of human evolution for decades.

    Scientists initially thought Homo naledi’s anatomy suggested the fossils might be as much as 2.5 million years old and were startled by evidence that suggested the species may have buried its dead, a trait long believed to be uniquely human.

    But dating of the sediments in which the fossils were found and teeth of the specimens showed that the species was roaming the African bush between 236,000 and 335,000 years ago, around the time that modern humans were emerging.

    “No one thought that a small-brained, primitive hominin could extend down through time this long and that period is exactly the moment when we thought modern humans were arising here in Africa,” said Lee Berger, project leader for Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand.

    Berger said the dating may force scientists to rethink their understanding of the emergence at that time of new technologies such as ochre production and bead work for adornments.

    There is archeological evidence from that period but little in the way of fossils to suggest who exactly made such things.

    “Now that we know that modern humans or at least the earliest forms of them were not alone during this expansion of the tool kit, it makes us now have to get better and better evidence to say who made what,” Berger told Reuters.

    The question of when Homo naledi went extinct, and why, remains unanswered, Berger said. Those pre-humans could have survived until 200,000 years ago or even more recently as the fossils uncovered so far do not indicate “an extinction event.”

    Homo sapiens may have been the culprit.

    Some scientists believe early modern humans drove other hominin relatives, for example, Neanderthals in Europe,
    to extinction elsewhere.

    “All we know is that Homo naledi is extinct today. Could Homo sapiens have driven them extinct? Yes,” Berger said.

    Scientists also know from DNA evidence that Homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals, so it could have mated with Homo naledi as well, though it was a more primitive hominin.

    “Could there have been gene exchange between Homo naledi and early Homo sapiens? It’s entirely possible,” Berger said.

    He said one of the next steps in this quest was to obtain Homo naledi DNA, which has so far proved elusive, but researchers are trying.

    If we had Homo naledi DNA, not only would we be able to answer the question of a biological exchange with humans, but we would gain a window back millions of years.

    “We would actually be looking at DNA from the split with humans. And that would be cool,” Berger said.

  • Ande Africa maps entrepreneurial ecosystem of Lagos

    Ande Africa maps entrepreneurial ecosystem of Lagos

    Most humans are entrepreneurs because the will to create—and to survive and strive to prosper is encoded in our DNA. But it doesn’t mean we should all start companies.

    We embrace Reid Hoffman’s view on entrepreneurship and see it first-hand in Lagos. Nigeria’s economic nerve centre constantly attracts big numbers of people pursuing fortunes and dreams. For entrepreneurs here, starting and growing a business can be really tough. But the will to create new opportunities have driven many to start one of several online platforms that has emerged in recent years.

    As young Nigerian entrepreneurs continue to create, the need to map and support these businesses becomes more pressing. Questions like— what support systems are needed to back entrepreneurs behind these businesses? Who are the intermediary organizations supporting entrepreneurs? How do we engage them and facilitate more support for entrepreneurs? The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurial (ANDE) is an organization that works with intermediary organizations that provide this kind of support to local entrepreneurs.

    We recently hosted an event in Lagos and presented the Lagos Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Snapshot. With support from Citi Foundation, the goal of this ecosystem is to provide better insight about the business environment, local support systems, and entrepreneurial intermediaries in and around Lagos and Abuja (Nigeria) and Accra (Ghana). It will also map the organizations supporting small and growing businesses (SGBs), and identify those gaps, challenges, and opportunities within the entrepreneurial ecosystem in these locations.

    This project will provide much needed intelligence for organizations to understand their role within the entrepreneurial ecosystem, identify potential partners, and serve as a reference for entrepreneurs to identify where to access certain types of support.

    “To be able to tackle various challenges in the Lagos entrepreneurial ecosystem, actors need to find a way to collaborate and not just compete,” said ANDE West Africa Chapter Coordinator, Olatunji Ajani, highlighting key findings alongside ANDE West Africa Regional Chapter Consultant Joshua Adedeji. According to him, “poor access to finance, lack of collaboration and /coordination among actors supporting entrepreneurs, difficulty in finding competent and skilled talent, and high- cost of rent are amongst the most pressing challenges.”

    Key stakeholders who presented at the discussion on the 10th of February included ANDE steering committee members: Peter Bamkole (Enterprise Development Centre), Nneka Eze (Dalberg Global Development Advisors), and Mobola Onibonoje (Alitheia Capital). Other organizations such as AMSCO, WEConnect International, Ashoka, Fate Foundation, Leap Africa, CSR-in-Action, Bolseth Group, MEST, and Idea-Nigeria were also in attendance.

    Representatives from Youth for Technology Foundation, Mind+, Makers Academy, WAVE Academy, E-green, MITIMETH, Sceptagon International, Third Sector Development Solution, and Unlock Consulting, among others met in small groups to discuss the findings and recommend how to close the gaps.

    According to Mr Adedeji, similar stakeholder meetings will be held in Abuja and Accra in March to get input from actors in the entrepreneurship community in those cities. The final entrepreneurial ecosystem snapshot will be released towards the end of second quarter of 2017.

     

  • Court orders DNA test over paternity of 3-year-old

    An Idi Ogungun Customary Court in  Agodi, Ibadan, on Monday ordered  a DNA test  to be conducted  to  determine the biological father of a three-year-old boy.

    The President of the court, Chief  Mukaila Balogun,   gave the order  when the mother of the child,  Monsurat Adeleke, and her estranged lover, Bayo Ogunsola, could not convince  the court  on the boy’s  paternity.

    Balogun directed that the two parties share the cost of the DNA test and return to the court on March 27 with the result.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the mother of the child had disagreed with  her erstwhile lover  over  who the real father of  the  child was Monsurat had on Feb. 14  approached the court, seeking an order to restrain Bayo  from parading himself as the biological father of her son.

    She claimed that she was six months pregnant for her husband before she met him  in a hotel.

    According to Monsurat, the respondent had cast a spell on her  and this  made her to leave her matrimonial home to live with him.

    She claimed she was under the spell for three years, adding that  it was during that time that she gave birth to the boy.

    The petitioner said she left for her matrimonial home recently when the spell was broken.

    Bayo, in his defence, insisted that the complainant conceived and gave birth to the child in his house, contrary to her claims.

    The respondent said he met Monsurat in a hotel owned by his brother and they both lived together after she ceased going to the hotel with other men.

    He insisted that Monsurat  conceived and gave birth to the boy while they were living together until she recently packed out of his house and returned to her former husband.

     

  • DNA of a thief

    Three news items last Monday and Tuesday set one wondering whether thieving was in the DNA of the Nigerian or he just cannot keep his finger still. Hardball wagers that you may have jumped to conclusion and think this has anything to do with the Mama Peace saga. No; nothing at all. That, if you ask Hardball, is a matter way beyond the realm of thievery; it is something close to banditry.

    One speaks of three stories about lesser Nigerians exhibiting the same traits. First is the stupendous case of a suspected pickpocket, Deji Ayoola: pulled in by men of the Rapid Response Squad of Lagos State for stealing at the bus stop, he proceeded to do even the unimaginable.

    As the story goes, as he was being interrogated, some notes fell off the pocket of the interrogating officer as she tried to remove her telephone. Instinctively Ayoola was said to have stepped on the notes and later kept them. But for someone that sighted him from afar he would have suckered the police right in their own domain.

    Talk of the DNA of a thief – his entire mind, body and soul are apparently tainted and corrupted.

    Well if we consider Ayoola to be a common, miserable thief who is perpetually roiled by want and privation, what shall we make of this case: it is the story of a 161-year-old building known as Victor Ola-Iya House. Located at Bamgbose Street, Lagos Island, the building was designated a national monument and a heritage site in 1956.

    But during the Eid-el-Kabir holidays, some people practically stole the property. Apparently working under the cover of darkness, they demolished the building and but for the intervention of the officials of Lagos State, construction would have commenced on the prime land.

    If you have any doubt about this being robbery in the dead of night, then what do you make of this one? Members of the National Assembly (NASS) – meaning the Senators and House of Representatives members- have continued to short-change their aides, according to a recent report by the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.

    Before 2007, the story was that salaries of legislative aides were paid through their principals. It was said that the aides were short-changed so much that the ensuing crisis was to be of cataclysmic magnitude.  The National Assembly Commission intervened quickly and decided to be paying aides directly.

    But even this has not stopped our revered legislators from finagling and making capital from their aides’ emolument.

    For instance, the Senate president, who is  entitled to only 45 aides, is said to have 115, Speaker has 168 instead of 35, while Deputy Senate President boasts of 60, exactly double his statutory number.

    It must be something in the DNA when people who do not have reason to steal do so voraciously.

  • DNA forensic lab ready in 15 months,

    The DNA Forensic Laboratory being built by the Lagos State Government will be ready in 15 months, Science and Technology Commissioner Mr Olufemi Odubiyi said yesterday.

    Speaking at the ministerial briefing to mark the first anniversary of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, he said the government was working with the Ministry of Justice on the laboratory.

    The laboratory, he said, would be at CMS on Lagos Island.

    Odubiyi said his ministry was partnering with law enforcement agencies to secure the state, adding that the Federal Government has installed and handed over 1,000 Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras to the state.

    According to him, the state will also install 12,000 CCTVs to bring the total number of cameras to 13,000.

    The enabling infrastructure for the CCTV scheme, he said, was being put in place with the ministry’s Smart City Project.

    “Enabling infrastructure to guarantee success of the CCTV cameras is critical, and this is where the Smart City Project will help. The project will also provide broadband deployment of fibres across the state,’’ he said.

    On the Ikeja computer village, Odubiyi said the planned relocation of the village was ongoing in collaboration with other ministries.

    He said the government was also planning entrepreneurship training for some of the computer village technologists as was done in the past.

    The commissioner said his ministry was also reviewing its Science and Technology Policy in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

  • Agreement on DNA forensic centre

    The government  of Lagos State yesterday signed an agreement for the establishment of a DNA Forensic Centre.

       Speaking at the official signing of the agreement between the government and ITSI Bioscience LCC in Alausa, the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, said the Lagos State DNA Forensics Centre (LSDFC) is aimed at achieving the growing DNA needs of criminal investigation.

    He said the agreement was in fulfillment of the government’s plan to establish a DNA Forensic Centre to facilitate prompt and effective prosecution of crimes.

    The Centre, according to Kazeem, will aid investigation on domestic and sexual violence cases, boost family and paternity proceedings, help in identifying victims of natural and man-made disasters and also be a tool for the judicial system.

    The commissioner said the Centre would be equipped with state-of-the-art equipment to support all levels of DNA collection from people and objects, evidence examination, DNA analysis and provide evidential DNA storage.

    “I am certain that the Lagos DNA forensic laboratory is going to be another unique solution to fighting crime in our quest for a safer and secure Lagos,” he said.

    Dr. Richard Somiasi, who signed on behalf of ITSI Bioscience LCC, thanked the government and promised to live up to the task.

  • Crime: Lagos to establish DNA Forensic Centre

    The Lagos State Government Tuesday said plans are already underway to establish a first ever DNA Forensic Laboratory in Nigeria in furtherance of its commitment to reforms in the justice sector and its resolve to tackle all forms of criminal activities headlong.

    The lab, which would be known as the Lagos State DNA Forensics Centre (LSDFC), is expected to take off within the next six to twelve months.

    Addressing journalists at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre in Alausa, the State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, said the establishment of the centre was another proof of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s sincerity and seriousness towards fighting all forms of criminality.

    According to him, when fully operational, the Centre would fulfill an unmet need for DNA profiling which is a unique forensic technique that is now being used all over the world.

    Kazeem, who addressed journalists alongside senior officials of the Ministry, said Governor Ambode had been at the vanguard of the war against domestic, sexual and violent crimes, and that the centre was geared towards vigorous justice sector reforms.

    Speaking on the importance of the forensic centre, the Commissioner said the facility which would be driven by the Ministry of Justice with active support of the Governor, will focus on DNA analysis to support the justice sector in diverse areas such as “collection and preserving reference and evidentiary DNA which can later be used in identifying criminals; decoding familial relationships of individuals which could also be a tool for the judicial system; and identifying victims and remains after natural and man-made calamities.”

    Kazeem who explained that DNA profiling is an extraction of DNA from body fluids, semen, nails, hair and other DNA generic sources, said the centre would greatly help to controvert evidence of alibi and confirm physical presence of suspects at the scene of a crime and the origin of DNA to such suspects.

    He said: “Even though the role of DNA in forensics, law enforcement and the justice sector is well known globally, a high-powered DNA analysis centre is not available in Nigeria. This means that most, if not all the DNA testing needs are performed outside Nigeria, a situation that leads to longer turnaround times and an overall higher cost of bringing closure to investigation and prosecution of crimes.”

    He said when operational, the centre will serve the DNA needs of the state, members of the public, other states and neighbouring countries, saying it would be of international standard which all stakeholders including security agencies would benefit from.

    On the areas of focus, Kazeem said the Centre would be deployed for criminal investigation to identify criminals with incredible accuracy and exonerate suspects mistakenly accused or convicted of crimes.

    The Centre, according to the Commissioner, would also aid investigation on domestic and sexual violence cases, boost family and paternity proceedings, and help in identifying victims of natural and man-made disasters.

    The Commissioner expressed optimism that the Centre would be a unique solution to fighting crime in the quest of the present administration for a safer and secured Lagos, adding, “Lagos is a unique place with a unique Governor who has continued and will continue to provide unique solutions.”