Introduction

As a young African desiring to develop a successful career in neuroscience research, I have always been very keen at identifying opportunities that will enable me develop myself in various capacities in order to thrive well in my chosen career path. It was, therefore, with unrivalled joy and expectation when I initially learned of the Ghana Fly Neuroscience Workshop, December 2015, organised by the FLiACT Consortium  with other partners. Being the very first of its kind in West Africa, it was a great privilege to have had the opportunity to be a participant. In this post, I will attempt to summarise my experiences during the workshop and the impact and impressions this workshop has had on neuroscience in Ghana and possibly Africa as a whole.

Pre-workshop motivations and expectations

I first heard about the call for applications for the workshop from a colleague, Thomas Karikari , a TReND in Africa  member and forerunner of the workshop, who encouraged me to apply. As I read more about the workshop and worked towards making an application, I can recall some fascinating features and expectations and these can be categorised into three. Firstly, as an early stage researcher, the workshop was going to be the very first I was attending since I embarked on postgraduate studies in 2013 and so I was hopeful to meet experienced scientists with whom I would interact and establish research collaborations and networks.

Secondly, I was hopeful of meeting and interacting with other researchers with whom I could work towards championing the development of neuroscience in Ghana. This was a major expectation since neuroscience teaching and research in the country was lacking. Trained as an optometrist, seeking a career in basic and translational neuroscience research seemed quite an unusual path in Ghana, particularly due to the limited research expertise in Ghana. I therefore found the fly neuroscience workshop a good avenue to develop my knowledge, skills and form new alliances.

Thirdly, considering the not-so-expensive nature of using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model organism, I recognised its introduction into African research as a major leap forward. A major obstacle to scientific research in Africa has been the lack of adequate financing of research costs. Therefore, empowering African scientists to circumvent high research costs whilst not compromising the quality of research was enough motivation for me to partake in the workshop.

The workshop

In attempting to give a personal account of my experience, I cannot leave out the classical hallmarks of the workshop that greatly contributed towards my overall fantastic experience. First among these was the diverse nature of the speakers and instructors who comprised of a mix of principal investigators postdoctoral fellows and senior PhD students from Europe and Africa, coupled with the unfeigned passion and dedication they demonstrated as they handled the various sessions of the workshop. The second point, in terms of diversity, is the varying backgrounds of workshop participants. It was interesting to meet a wide range of enthusiastic researchers, professionals, postgraduate and undergraduate students (from four African countries) gather under a common research theme.

Spanning a period of four days, it was clear that the organisers had taken the extra effort to plan a well-balanced recipe of daily activities, including a perfect blend of lectures, discussions and laboratory training. Knowing that majority of the participants had little or no exposure to fly neuroscience research, the workshop set as its primary objective to initially expose us all to some basic concepts of the fruit fly as a biological organism. We touched on the Drosophila insect family, their ecology, genetic and phenotypic classification. To complement these, initial laboratory sessions trained participants in basic skills of fly husbandry including making fly food and setting up fly traps. The workshop also exposed us generally to the various ways the fruit fly has been used as a model in basic and translational research and these were substantiated not only by previous studies but also on-going projects.

Personally, I had always wondered how such a small insect could be used in studying the brain and neural networks, considering the imperceptible size of the brain of the fly to permit manipulations of brain parts and neural connections of the body. Interestingly, the workshop offered us the opportunity for hands-on experience dissecting fly larval brains, fluorescent staining methods and visualisations of larval brain sections among others. These activities contributed greatly in demystifying the complexities I had envisaged in working with the fruit fly and opened me up to the world of possibilities that exist in science. On hindsight, I can recall how the workshop progressed from the basic approaches through to systems neuroscience and climaxed with translational aspects of Drosophila research in which various presenters demonstrated the applications of the fruit fly in modelling and investigating various neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, motor neuron disease and the likes. We explored how these models have enabled the unraveling of mechanisms underlying these diseases and also serving as less expensive systems for high throughput screening of various potential neuroprotective drugs. In light of this, practical sessions involved behavioural measures such as employed in research including climbing assays, courtship and other behavioural measures on wild type and mutant flies.

The workshop also afforded participants and facilitators a common ground for interaction, sharing valuable ideas and networking. Aside official discussions that were part of the workshop structure, participants and instructors had the opportunity to interact and share ideas on informal platforms such as during communal coffee breaks, lunch and dinners.

Post-workshop outcomes

This workshop heralded the beginning of unprecedented developments in neuroscience research in Ghana. First is the formation of a neuroscience society in Ghana. With neuroscience being an orphaned discipline in Ghana, there had long been the interest in forming a society to bring together neuroscientists and allied researchers. As the workshop brought together individuals involved in neuroscience research, it provided a fertile ground for the birthing of such a society. Before the workshop came to a close, participants decided to form what is now referred to as the Ghana Neuroscience Society (GNS). This we thought, would be a vibrant body that will spearhead the advancement of the teaching, learning and research neuroscience and related fields in Ghana and also serve as a major avenue of bridging the gap between neuroscience research in Ghana and the outside world through collaborations and capacity building. It is noteworthy that this idea of GNS which was hatched during the workshop came into full realisation in May 2016 when we organised the first ever Ghana Neuroscience Symposium under the theme "Neuroscience in Ghana; Past, Present and Future" at the University of Ghana,  Accra. The symposium brought together researchers across the country who presented their research works. The society is hopeful to gain admittance into the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa  in due course. If Ghana has a neuroscience society now, much credit goes to the fly neuroscience workshop for catalysing this idea.

 Another interesting post-workshop development I would like to share is the current opportunity I have found to undertake a summer internship at a laboratory in a world renowned research institute in Europe to build my research capacity in molecular biology techniques which will go a long way to impart my desired research career. All this became possible due to some interactions and networks I established with leading professors through my participation in the fly neuroscience workshop.

Lessons learnt, Overall impression & Conclusion

Although I had a fair idea of how Drosophila was being used in recent scientific research prior to the workshop, the workshop offered me tremendous understanding into the current and prospective trends of research involving the fruit fly in neuroscience and areas outside neuroscience. Through the workshop, I came to appreciate that most scientists in the developed countries are willing to establish collaborations with scientists in developing countries. Also, I noticed that there is a great desire in many African scholars to develop skills in scientific research, particularly neuroscience. However, it will take well-resourced programmes such as the fly Neuroscience workshop to make all these desires a reality.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the fly Neuroscience workshop in Ghana has served as a major boost to the development of neuroscience in Ghana and the African continent as a whole, and future workshops, conferences, summer schools and the likes tailored towards capacity development in neuroscience and related fields, will be very beneficial to current and prospective scientists on the African soil.

Biography

The writer is Solomon Sarpong Merepa. A Ghanaian national who had his undergraduate training at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, where he graduated with Distinction in Doctor of Optometry (OD). He proceeded to the University of Sheffield, UK, where he graduated with Distinction in Translational Neuroscience (MSc). He is currently an Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Optometry and Visual Science of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology - Kumasi, Ghana, where he teaches undergraduate optometry students courses such as Neuro-Anatomy and Neurophysiology among other core optometry courses. He aspires to develop a research career in visual neuroscience with special interests in understanding changes in cellular mechanisms during neurodegenerative diseases, methods of neuronal protection and regeneration in retinal neurodegenerative diseases such as glaucoma and autosomal dominant optic atrophy (ADOA).

For future correspondence, you can reach him through this email address: smerepa@yahoo.com