Dr Segun Fatumo
PhD
Assistant Professor
of Genetic Epidemiology & Bioinformatics
MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit
Uganda Medical Informatics Centre
Entebbe
Uganda
Dr. Segun Fatumo is an Assistant Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Bioinformatics at MRC/UVRI Uganda and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). He leads The African Computational Genomics (TACG) Research group. His group’s expertise includes but not limited to GWAS, meta-analysis, Multi-variates GWAS, Genetic Risk Score, Fine Mapping, Mendelian randomisation studies and Drug Targets Discovery. He was recently (July 2020) awarded a prestigious Wellcome International Intermediate Fellowship to lead an innovative research programme at the MRC/UVRI and LSHTM.
Dr Fatumo’s research largely focuses on the genetic impact of non-communicable diseases in Africa. He is actively involved in capacity building across Africa including teaching and/or postgraduate supervision at Makerere University Uganda, the University of Sciences, Techniques, and Technology of Bamako (USTTB) Mali, and Covenant University Nigeria and the H3Africa Bioinformatics Network (H3ABioNet) node at the Centre for Genomics Research and Innovation, National Biotechnology Development Agency (CGRI-NABDA) in Abuja, Nigeria. He is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) in the UK and teaches on MSc programmes at LSHTM and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).
Dr Fatumo co-leads the Nigerian Non-Communicable Diseases - Genetic Heritage Study (NCD-GHS) Consortium and co-directs the Nigerian cardio-metabolic genomic study (NicGen) - A concerted effort to see over 100,000 Nigerians participate in the eponymous study, which will seek to understand the genetic basis of the highly prevalent non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in Nigeria such as chronic kidney, diabetes, obesity among others.
Dr Fatumo received postdoctoral training in genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge and Wellcome Sanger Institute and a postdoctoral fellowship in Bioinformatics at the University of Georgia, Athens, USA. Prior to that, He had postgraduate training in applied Bioinformatics at the University of Cologne, Germany and Ph.D. in Computer Science (Bioinformatics specialization) from Covenant University, Nigeria. During his Ph.D. Programme, Segun developed a model which identified twenty-two (22) potential novel drug targets against malaria, some of which have been tested and validated experimentally.
Dr. Fatumo is the Founder and pioneer President of the Nigerian Bioinformatics and Genomics Network. He is the immediate past vice-president of the African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (ASBCB).
Affiliations
Teaching
I teach on various masters' degree programmes and supervise doctoral students.
Research
My work largely centres on the genetic basis of Non-communicable diseases, particularly chronic kidney disease, lipid metabolism, coronary artery and infectious disease, and the use of genetic tools for causal inference.