Rate My Professor Segun Fatumo

Professor Segun Fatumo serves as Professor and Chair of Genomic Diversity at the Precision Healthcare University Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London, and as Head of Non-Communicable Disease Genomics at the MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit. A genomic epidemiologist with over two decades of experience, he focuses on the genetic determinants of non-communicable diseases, including chronic kidney disease, diabetes, obesity, lipid metabolism, and cardiometabolic traits in diverse ancestry populations, with a strong emphasis on African genomics. His research integrates genome-wide association studies, polygenic risk score analyses, Mendelian randomization, fine mapping, and drug target discovery to promote equitable human genomics research, population diversity, data ethics, and genomic medicine implementation. Fatumo leads pioneering cross-continental programs such as KidneyGenAfrica, BCX-Africa, the Nigerian 100K Genome Project, and the Nigerian Non-Communicable Diseases Genetic Heritage Study consortium involving over 100,000 Nigerians, alongside contributions to major international consortia including H3Africa, CKDGen, MAGIC, GBMI, PGC-Africa, IHCC, GLGC, and PRIMED/CARDINAL.

Fatumo earned his PhD in Bioinformatics from Covenant University, Nigeria, followed by postgraduate training in applied bioinformatics at the University of Cologne, Germany, a postdoctoral fellowship in bioinformatics at the University of Georgia, USA, and further postdoctoral training in genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge and Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK. His career includes roles as Associate Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Bioinformatics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, leader of the African Computational Genomics research group, and Wellcome International Intermediate Fellow since 2020. He is a recipient of the MRC Impact Prize for advancing African representation in genomic research, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. Fatumo holds editorial positions as Associate Editor for Genome Medicine and BMC Medical Genomics, and serves on scientific advisory boards for Genomics England, the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité, and the GWAS Catalog. Key publications encompass 'A roadmap to increase diversity in genomic studies' (Nature Medicine, 2022), 'The trans-ancestral genomic architecture of glycemic traits' (Nature Genetics, 2021), 'Global Biobank Meta-analysis Initiative: Powering genetic discovery across human disease' (Cell Genomics, 2022), 'Uganda Genome Resource Enables Insights into Population History and Genomic Discovery in Africa' (Cell, 2019), and editorship of Genomics in Africa (Routledge, 2024). He teaches on MSc programs at LSHTM and Queen Mary University of London, supervises PhD students in the UK and Africa, and organizes genomic analysis workshops across Africa, fostering capacity building.