How medicines can be tailored for African populations: Prof Kelly Chibale

Within the context of innovative pharmaceutical research and development (R&D), African populations have historically been neglected from the perspective of inclusion of African data in the discovery and development of new medicines. Coupled with the generally low volume of clinical trials in Africa and absence of African-centric preclinical discovery tools and models, this has contributed to the suboptimal efficacy and safety of some medicines used in African populations. How populations respond to medicines is influenced by, amongst several factors, the genetics of a given population. Within this context, African populations have greater genetic variation relative to other populations worldwide. At this juncture it is noteworthy that there is a link between the genetics of a population, the socioeconomic and physical environment in which patients live, and treatment of disease. This warrants the development of capacity to discover and develop medicines near patient populations while also developing tools and models to facilitate a stratified medicine approach.

This lecture will describe efforts to develop medicines discovery capacity in Africa and R&D approaches towards tailoring medicines for African populations.

Kelly Chibale is a Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cape Town (UCT) where he holds the Neville Isdell Chair in African-centric Drug Discovery & Development. He is also a Full Member of the UCT Institute of Infectious Disease & Molecular Medicine, founding Director of the South African Medical Research Council Drug Discovery & Development Research unit at UCT, the Founder and Director of the UCT Holistic Drug Discovery and Development Centre H3D, a Johnson and Johnson (J&J) Centre for Global Health Discovery.

Kelly obtained his PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in the UK with the late Stuart Warren. This was followed by postdoctoral stints at the University of Liverpool in the UK with Nick Greeves and at The Scripps Research Institute in the USA with K.C. Nicolaou. He was a Sandler Sabbatical Fellow at the University of California San Francisco, a US Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and a Visiting Professor at Pfizer in the UK.

After serving as an Associate Editor for the American Chemical Society (ACS)’s Journal of Medicinal Chemistry during the period 2021-2022, Kelly became the Editor-In-Chief of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters in 2023.

His research interests are in infectious disease drug discovery and the development of preclinical discovery tools and models to contribute to improving treatment outcomes in people of African heritage.

The event is free to join and live subtitles will be available in-person and virtually

This lecture can be attended in person at the Royal Society

Doors will open to the public at 5.45pm GMT.

For all enquiries, please contact [email protected].

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London, United Kingdom