Dear reader,

Happy New Year!

To kick off 2024, we are shining the spotlight on the exciting Feed the Future Striga Smart Sorghum for Africa (SSSfA) project. Launched in 2022, the cross-sectoral collaborative project in Kenya and Ethiopia is working to outsmart Striga (witchweed) and give sorghum a fighting chance using genome editing technology. But that's not all - SSSfA is keen on growing skills and solutions right at home, making sure that genome-edited Striga-resistant sorghum is not just a one-time product, but the beginning of a seamless introduction of genome editing to complement the pre-existing breeding techniques.

In this month's video, Bibiana Iraki, Senior Programs Officer at ISAAA AfriCenter, highlights the key milestones made within the African biosciences landscape in 2023. It was a year marked by notable advancements in research and development, regulatory approvals, communication, and goodwill to create an enabling environment for biosciences research translation. As we step into 2024, Bibiana extends an invitation to all like-minded partners to join hands in bridging the gap between science and society in the journey to realizing the shared vision of the Africa we want.

In our story of the month, we feature Stéphane Fadanka, the Executive Director at MboaLab Biotech in Cameroon, whom the Drumbeat team met at the Africa Biennial Biosciences Communication (ABBC 2023) Symposium. Stéphane highlights how Africa stands to benefit from bio-innovation ventures and start-ups. This is a primary target for Africa Biosciences Hubs (AfriBIOHubs), an initiative of the SSSfA project aimed at supporting innovation, bio-entrepreneurship, and local capacity for conducting routine genome editing research and commercialization.

The Drumbeat invites you to join the Africa Science Dialogue community, a new initiative that connects experts, journalists, and other stakeholders to interact and share factual, verifiable, and credible information about science, technologies, and innovations in agriculture, health, and the environment. Register here to be part of this vibrant community.

Finally, we would like to congratulate the European Parliament's Environment Committee for voting in favor of the proposal for New Genomic Techniques. This is a significant step towards enabling plant breeding innovations to contribute to a sustainable food system.

Enjoy your read!