Dr Elvis Twumasi

Dr. Aboagye, is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Division of Human Genetics, Department of Pathology, University of Cape Town, South Africa, with research focus on genomics of deafness in African populations. Prior to this position, his PhD work at the University of Ghana had generated useful insights and illuminated the heritable and de novo genetic factors responsible for this highly penetrant and heterogenous disabling phenotype among Ghanaians. The work also clarified with empirical data showing that not much genetic ancestry proportions are shared between the populations studied, estimated the age of the predominant genetic cause of deafness in Ghana and suggested likely multiple independent origins of the variant across populations reporting the same deleterious variant. He coordinates a multi-country (Ghana, South Africa, Mali, Senegal, Rwanda, and Cameroon) functional characterisation of identified novel and candidate deafness genes in the Genetic Medicine of African Populations (GeneMAP) group at the Division of Human Genetics, University of Cape Town. His research interest includes harnessing patient/disease-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and three-dimensional organoid models to better under this heterogeneous condition and identify potential therapeutic targets.