In Her Own Words: Sainabou Laye Ndure on Why She Founded WHGD

When I was a child growing up in The Gambia, I watched a child in my community suffer from a condition that no one around them could explain. What I later came to understand as a genetic disorder was interpreted by those around them as something spiritual, something to be feared, managed with rituals, or simply endured. No one mentioned genetics. No one had the language.

That moment stayed with me. It followed me through my studies, through my MSc at Oxford, and into my PhD research on kidney disease genomics at Queen Mary University of London. It is the reason I founded HuGAA. And it is the reason I established World Human Genetics Day.

Science has the power to change lives, but only if it reaches people. In Africa, where the world's greatest genetic diversity resides, we remain underrepresented in the research that shapes global medicine. That is not just a scientific gap. It is an injustice.

World Human Genetics Day is my answer to that injustice. It is a day to celebrate what genetics reveals about our shared humanity. A day to reduce the stigma that still surrounds genetic conditions in many communities. And a day to demand that African voices, African genomes, and African scientists are no longer an afterthought in the global genomics story.

We launched WHGD 2026 from The Gambia, the smallest country on mainland Africa,  and the world heard us. That is what I always believed was possible. I hope you believe it too.

— Sainabou Laye Ndure