Success Stories of Africa-Europe Research Collaboration in Personalised Medicine: The OPTIMA project

The EU-Africa PerMed project, as part of its communication and dissemination work, has undertaken an initiative to identify and showcase Success Stories of AfricaEurope Research Collaboration in Personalised Medicine. Through real case examples, we aim to present compelling narratives that illustrate the tangible benefits of international collaboration in this field, offering valuable insights to policymakers, patients, clinicians, and the general public on why such collaborations are essential to support.

This document presents the Success Story: The OPTIMA project is at the forefront of innovative research aimed at improving the personalised prevention of type 2 diabetes (T2D). OPTIMA aims to establish ethnic- and sex-specific biomarkers linked to dietary patterns, creating culturally adapted prototypes for T2D prevention. It identifies and validates metabolites and proteins through prospective studies of incident T2D in two African cohorts (South Africa and Ghana) and one European cohort (Sweden).