Building Skills, Confidence and Connections:

From 17–28 August 2026, the African Bioinformatics Institute (ABI), together with the African Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data Intensive Sciences (ACE-Uganda), the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), and the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit, delivered the first ABI Bioinformatics Summer School at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), Makerere University, in Kampala.

The Summer School represented an important milestone for ABI’s growing training programme. Designed for researchers who already had some exposure to bioinformatics but wanted to strengthen their ability to work independently with genomic data, the programme combined essential computational skills with specialised, research-focused genomic analysis.

It also demonstrated the scale of demand for intermediate bioinformatics training on the continent. More than 800 applications were received for just 30 available places, with participants ultimately selected from institutions across Africa. The resulting cohort brought together researchers working across different disciplines, organisms, and research questions, creating an environment in which participants could learn as much from one another as from the formal curriculum.

The second half of the session moved into engagement, with an icebreaker poll followed by four themed Mentimeter surveys designed to capture participants’ perspectives on priority challenges and opportunities. The icebreaker poll highlighted that the biggest challenge for many was access to training and skills development, while the resources they most hoped to gain from the ABI included curated, African-relevant datasets and a software toolkit for common workflows. Subsequent thematic polls further underscored community priorities: AI was seen as a useful tool to support development but not a replacement for core bioinformatics expertise, with outputs requiring human interpretation and contextualisation. On workforce issues, participants stressed the pressing need to retain skilled professionals in Africa by creating career pathways and opportunities that incentivise them to stay. When it came to data sharing, there was strong support for federated approaches that maintain data sovereignty, alongside a call for funders to mandate FAIRification to accelerate adoption and increase data reuse.

From computational foundations to genomic analysis

The Summer School was deliberately structured around progression.

During the first week, participants strengthened the computational foundations required for modern genomic research. Training covered the Linux command line, high-performance computing (HPC), R programming, and next-generation sequencing workflows, with participants working directly within the HPC-enabled environment provided by ACE-Uganda.

These are increasingly fundamental skills for researchers working with genomic data. As biological datasets grow in size and complexity, researchers need to be able not only to understand bioinformatics methods conceptually, but also to navigate computational environments, manage analyses efficiently, troubleshoot workflows, and interpret their outputs.

The hands-on format of the Summer School was therefore central to its design. Rather than focusing primarily on lectures, participants worked directly with computational tools and datasets throughout the programme.

Week 1 was supported by trainers including Dr David Twesigomwe, Gloria Nakabiri, Ian Wasukira, Peter van Heusden, and Patricia Nabisubi, who guided participants through the core Linux, HPC, R programming, and introductory NGS components. Social-media reflections from the week highlighted the energy and curiosity of the cohort, as well as the confidence participants were beginning to build as they became more comfortable working in computational environments.

Moving into specialised genomics

With those foundations in place, the second week shifted towards more specialised application.

Participants divided into three parallel training tracks based on their research interests: Human Genomics, Pathogen Genomics, and Metagenomics. This allowed them to move beyond generic bioinformatics exercises and focus more deeply on approaches relevant to their own scientific questions.

The Human Genomics track was led by Dr David Twesigomwe from the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit and Dr Musasula Sinkala from the University of Cape Town, with participants exploring approaches for studying human genetic variation and its relevance to health and disease.

In the Pathogen Genomics track, Shahiiid Kiyaga and Patricia Nabisubi from IDI/ACE-Uganda worked with participants on genomic approaches relevant to infectious-disease research and surveillance, including the use of genomic information to understand pathogen variation and evolution.

The Metagenomics track, facilitated by Ephifania Geza from the University of Cape Town and Alfred Ssekagiri from the Uganda Virus Research Institute, introduced participants to approaches for analysing complex microbial communities.

Importantly, the specialised tracks remained strongly application-focused. Participants worked with real-world genomic datasets, putting the computational skills developed during the first week into practice and progressing towards analyses that more closely resembled the challenges they encounter in their own research.

 

Building more than technical skills

While developing technical expertise was the immediate objective of the Summer School, the two weeks in Kampala also created something equally important… Connections.