When Professor Nicola Mulder started working with data in science, she never imagined it would one day help diagnose diseases across an entire continent. Now she is leading a brand-new research unit that aims to do exactly that.
The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and University of Cape Town (UCT) recently launched the AI for African Population Health Unit, a center dedicated to using artificial intelligence to improve healthcare across Africa. The unit opened its doors this month at UCT's Computational Biology Division, part of the Faculty of Health Sciences.
"The main aim is to develop, test and apply artificial intelligence and machine learning tools tailored to African population health contexts," Professor Mulder explained. Machine learning is a type of AI that learns from data to make predictions — in this case, health predictions.
The unit will train AI systems using African medical data to spot diseases earlier. It focuses on non-communicable diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, which are becoming more common across the continent. It also aims to improve diagnosis of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria. TB, HIV, and malaria remain major health threats in sub-Saharan Africa.
Professor Mulder brings more than a decade of experience building data science skills across Africa. For the past four years, she has run DS-I Africa, an open data science platform connecting researchers working on African health challenges. She earned her PhD in Medical Microbiology and previously worked at the European Bioinformatics Institute, a world-leading center for biological data analysis.
The new unit is one of seven research units the SAMRC launched on July 28. Two of those are based at UCT. The SAMRC, South Africa's main medical research funding body, now supports 30 external research units across the country, bringing together scientists from universities, research institutes, and international partners.
Two mid-career scientists are central to the unit's work. Dr. Musalula Sinkala and Dr. Hocine Bendou both specialize in applying data science to medical research. Professor Mulder said they are making major contributions to building data science capacity in Africa.
A key part of the unit's mission is training the next generation of researchers. It will focus on students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, offering them opportunities to develop interdisciplinary skills spanning computer science, medicine, and ethics. The team will also study the ethics of AI in healthcare to ensure the technology is used responsibly.
UCT is well-positioned to host the unit. The university has strong connections to clinicians, biomedical researchers, and specialized labs within its Faculty of Health Sciences and the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine. Professor Mulder noted that the Computational Biology Division has access to powerful computing facilities needed for this research.
"The field of AI for health is progressing rapidly, and we are excited to be part of and contributing to it in Africa," Professor Mulder said. With this new unit, African researchers are now building tools that could help doctors detect diseases sooner, choose better treatments, and ultimately save lives — using data from their own populations to solve their own health challenges.