Building Immunogenomics Equity: Establishing Uganda's First End-to-End scRNA-Seq Capacity Validated by Broad SARS-CoV-2 Neutralising Signatures

The COVID-19 pandemic redefined the centrality of B-cell-mediated humoral immunity in protection against SARS-CoV-2. However, immunogenomic studies remain heavily skewed toward non-African populations, overlooking the continent's distinct immunological landscapes. To address this inequity, we established a fully integrated single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and B cell receptor (BCR) profiling platform at the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), under the Global Immunology and Immune Sequencing for Epidemic Response (GIISER) initiative.