A bunch of boffins at Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State led by Professor Solomon Rotimi of the Department of Biochemistry, have conducted the Nigeria’s first fully indigenous genetic study on breast cancer.
The study focuses on how BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene variants are influencing breast cancer among Nigerian women.
The study wa published in the Technology in Cancer Research and Treatment journal under the title “Screening of Germline BRCA1 and BRCA2 Variants in Nigerian Breast Cancer Patients,”.
In a statement issued on Friday, the university noted that while BRCA genes have been extensively studied in Western populations due to their strong links to breast and ovarian cancer, however, the African context has remained grossly underexplored. Where such efforts have been attempted in Nigeria, they often relied on outside expertise.
“This is a first-of-its-kind, wholly local study,” Covenant University declared. “We aimed to understand how specific genetic variants may be uniquely contributing to breast cancer cases among Nigerian women.”
