CASSAVANET4DEV: In a race to prevent hunger: Cassava Bioinformatics for African cassava biotechnology.

In sub-Saharan Africa almost 25% were estimated to be undernourished, representing almost one third of people suffering from hunger globally.

Cassava, with its resilience to heat and drought stresses, can efficiently respond to critical present and future climate change challenges and feed more than 800 million people in subtropics area.

However, yield below expected values, due to a vast range of reasons, and a potential source of malnutrition due to low nutrient content request further progress in cassava research to tackle these problems, but progress has been somehow uneven.

There is an ongoing development in biotechnology tools on one hand, but a significant vacuum of basic knowledge on the other.

To support the increase of basic molecular knowledge in cassava research we propose a network of specialists in Europe and Africa to create an Africa-Wide community of scientists working on deciphering gene functionalities, pathways of important traits to enable modern breeding programs and biotechnological approaches e.g. gene editing that need detailed information to successfully increase the efficient development of desired traits.

Therefore, we not only propose the production of important knowlede but also to invest in training of young scientists who will be involved into the data analysis, after a thorough training, to acquire the needed experience to design molecular experiments and analyse such data sets to support out effort and to be able to run their own projects.