IBM Scientist Recognized as 2017 Quartz Africa Innovator for Cancer Research
Johannesburg, South Africa - 05 May 2017: IBM (NYSE: IBM) scientist Geoffrey Siwo has been named a 2017 Quartz Africa Innovator for his work in mapping the way cancer spreads and how cancer cells originate within the body.
Geoffrey Siwo, a scientist at IBM Research - Africa demonstrates to IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty how the newly opened lab in Johannesburg, South Africa is using cognitive, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things to address challenges in healthcare, urban ecosystems and to make new discoveries in the universe. (Credit: IBM) This is the 3rd annual list of Quartz Africa Innovators. The latest list includes more than 30 Africans from 18 different countries.
Siwo told Quartz Africa editors that, “Understanding cancer will also equip us with an understanding of many areas of biology, and therefore ways of developing diagnostics and treatments for diseases beyond cancer.”
He joined IBM’s Research lab in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2015. Siwo is currently leading the data driven healthcare research at the lab which in addition to cancer, is also focused on tracking the spread of tuberculosis and anti-malarial drug resistance. He will be presenting some of his latest research at the Turing Talks in Scotland on 13 June.
Siwo earned a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Notre Dame in 2014 for developing computational models for understanding malaria drug resistance. He performed his post-doctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania (Perelman School of Medicine) and Dartmouth College (Geisel School of Medicine).
There are more than 10,000 diseases on the planet, asthma to zygomycosis. Geoffrey Siwo wants to cure all of them.
A NEW PODCAST BY OZY SUBSCRIBE GEOFFREY SIWO: CROWDSOURCING CURES
Geoffrey Siwo: Crowdsourcing Cures RISING STARS WHY YOU SHOULD CARE Geoffrey Siwo wants to accelerate drug discovery by enlisting the help of millions of Internet users around the world — not research insitutions or Big Pharma. By Melissa Pandika THE DAILY DOSESEPT 30 2014
There are more than 10,000 diseases on the planet, asthma to zygomycosis. Geoffrey Siwo wants to cure all of them.
MORE FROM OZY, BELOW
And the 36-year-old computational biologist believes he can. Or, rather, that we can, if we can disrupt drug discovery. It’s worth listening: Few understand the toll of disease like Siwo, who lost three sisters to disease in Kenya.
Today, pharmaceutical companies pour resources into widespread diseases that afflict developed countries, like cancer or diabetes. There’s less economic incentive to tackle rare diseases or those, like malaria and tuberculosis, that plague poorer regions. Even if there were, drug companies would still lack the manpower to tackle every disease known.
A NEW PODCAST BY OZY SUBSCRIBE GEOFFREY SIWO: CROWDSOURCING CURES
Geoffrey Siwo: Crowdsourcing Cures RISING STARS WHY YOU SHOULD CARE Geoffrey Siwo wants to accelerate drug discovery by enlisting the help of millions of Internet users around the world — not research insitutions or Big Pharma. By Melissa Pandika THE DAILY DOSESEPT 30 2014
There are more than 10,000 diseases on the planet, asthma to zygomycosis. Geoffrey Siwo wants to cure all of them.
MORE FROM OZY, BELOW
And the 36-year-old computational biologist believes he can. Or, rather, that we can, if we can disrupt drug discovery. It’s worth listening: Few understand the toll of disease like Siwo, who lost three sisters to disease in Kenya.
Today, pharmaceutical companies pour resources into widespread diseases that afflict developed countries, like cancer or diabetes. There’s less economic incentive to tackle rare diseases or those, like malaria and tuberculosis, that plague poorer regions. Even if there were, drug companies would still lack the manpower to tackle every disease known.
WHAT IF YOU COULD FIND A WAY IN WHICH BASICALLY ANYONE WITH A COMPUTER AND INTERNET CONNECTION COULD CONTRIBUTE TO RESEARCH ON A DISEASE?— GEOFFREY SIWO Siwo sees another way. “What if you could find a way in which basically anyone with a computer and Internet connection could contribute to research on a disease?” he asks — and it’s not a rhetorical question. This month, he unveiled the United Genomes Project, Africa’s first crowdsourced, open-source genetic database. Siwo and his team will start by asking first-generation African-Americans to upload their results from 23andMe and other commercially available genetic kits. Then they’ll fan out to African countries once they approve direct-to-consumer genetic testing.
Genomic data could help shed light on mutations and other factors that underlie diseases and susceptibility to them, as well as drug responses, allowing physicians to tailor treatments to individual patients. United Genomes’ database would also teach students to analyze genetic information, allowing even those without lab access to generate and answer their own research questions.
In 2011, Foldit players deciphered the structure of an AIDS-causing monkey virus in 10 days — a puzzle that had stumped scientists for 15 years. Thirty-five-year-old Siwo has velvety eyes and a schoolboy expression that breaks readily into a smile. He speaks softly but openly from his office at Dartmouth, where he’s a postdoc, describing his childhood in dusty, rural Homa Bay, Kenya — sans electricity or running water. One sister died of malaria when she was 9, and it shaped him.
As did his teachers. A middle school teacher kindled his passion for biology when she described cancer as uncontrolled cell growth, spurring him to read voraciously about how the disease developed. At 19, Siwo wrote to the then-chair of Stanford University’s biology department, Patricia Jones, asking what determined the arrangement of genes in DNA. Six months later, he received a parcel from her: a college-level molecular and cell biology textbook. He devoured all 1,000-plus pages.
As an undergraduate at Egerton University, in Nairobi, Siwo conducted research at the Institute of Primate Research. Tucked in the Oloolua forest, where giant trees rustle with baboons, Siwo studied endogenous retroviruses. Retroviruses store genetic information in the form of a molecule called RNA. When they infect a host, an enzyme called reverse transcriptase converts RNA is converted to DNA, which then inserts itself into the host’s genome. Endogenous retroviruses are fragments of retroviral DNA from past infections, inherited from earlier generations.
Knowing that HIV is a retrovirus, too, Siwo wondered, “How could these two retroviruses interact?” He hypothesized that HIV could borrow genes from endogenous retroviruses to resist HIV drugs. Our genomes have accumulated so many different retroviral DNA sequences that chance suggests that at least some have mutations that confer drug resistance.
There was doubt about whether Siwo could test his hypothesis without large-scale molecular experiments, which would require large-scale funding. So he ditched traditional molecular methods: “I thought, ’What if I could test it on a computer?’”
Siwo didn’t own a computer; he’d barely even used one. So he clocked in an hour or two a day at a local cybercafé, six days a week for several months, analyzing human DNA sequences available on an online database. The café charged him a dollar an hour — more than he had spent on food in a day. Siwo often skipped lunches to save money.
Sure enough, he observed that endogenous retrovirus reverse transcriptase contains mutations that can confer resistance to HIV drugs. That means if HIV incorporates some of these mutated sequences into its own DNA, the result could be a drug-resistant virus. He submitted an abstract to the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy — and, at 24, received an invitation to present his findings in Chicago. “That experience has always convinced me of the power of computing as a means of solving very difficult biological problems,” he says. He hopes the United Genomes Project database could similarly help other African scientists conduct their own research.
Siwo then headed to the University of Notre Dame for a doctorate in computational biology, investigating drug resistance and malaria. His Ph.D. adviser, Gustavo Stolovitzky, recalls him as shy yet persistent. “If he has a question, he forces himself to ask it. It’s more important for him to know,” he says. “He’s a gem, but a rough gem, polishing himself, working actively on his own development.” ... ...
