Dr Lucas Amenga-Etego is a Research Fellow at WACCBIP. Before he joined the Centre's faculty in 2018, he was a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Biomedical Sciences Unit at the Navrongo Health Research Centre of the Ghana Health Service in the Upper East Region of northern Ghana.
He holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Genetic Epidemiology from the University of Oxford and a Master of Philosophy in Microbiology from the University of Ghana.
After his Master's training in 2005, he was awarded a Data Fellowship by the Malaria Genetic Epidemiology Network (MalariaGEN), a large consortium aimed at developing methods for human malaria genetic susceptibility analysis and malaria parasite population genetics within the context of a global framework for data sharing and capacity building.
His work with MalariaGEN dovetailed into his DPhil studies, which focused on P. falciparum population genetics and host-parasite interactions using whole genome Illumina short read sequencing of P. falciparum data from clinical sources. This work was successful and contributed to the rapid evolution of Plasmodium spp short read sequencing directly from clinical samples.
His work has inspired several peer-reviewed publications and he has over 500 clinical isolates sequenced and contributed to the MalariaGEN P. falciparum community project and the Pf3k databases. These data are open source and may be accessed by scientist across the globe for advancing a deeper understanding of malaria parasite biology and population genetics.
His research and teaching focuses on malaria parasite population genetics/genomics, antimalarial drug resistance, host-parasite interactions and bioinformatics. He continues to collaborate with colleagues in the Centre for Genomics and Global Health, Big Data Institute at the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom. He also collaborates with other African scientists in the Plasmodium Diversity Network Africa (PDNA) to conduct studies into the genetic diversity and population structure of P. falciparum populations across Africa to gain a deeper understanding of parasite biology and host genetic factors that underlie malaria susceptibility (or resistance).
