How African scientists can give back to their home continent

Rafiou Agoro’s early-career experiences in France and the United States inspired him to mentor colleagues in Africa and those whose careers also took them overseas.

Rafiou Agoro

Students in Abidjan, Côte D’Ivoire, graduate with a digital-sciences degree in November 2019.Credit: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty

I still recall my excitement when I started doing experiments during my master’s programme and saw a well-equipped laboratory for the first time.

I adapted easily to the theoretical aspects of my course at the University of Orléans, France. But my undergraduate training in Algeria, where I studied bioengineering, and my education in Togo, the West African country where I went to school, lacked practical training in research methodology and benchwork.

When I first arrived in France, I stayed with a friend of someone I knew in Algeria. After giving me a good meal (a standard welcome in Africa), he spent five hours advising me on how to open a bank account, locate my university department and find student accommodation. Because of his help, I quickly found an apartment on campus and developed a wide social network, including some fellow students from Africa.

Back in 2012, our first task on the master’s programme was to carry out a chromatin immunoprecipitation assay to detect protein–DNA interactions in the cell nucleus. I had amazing classmates who helped me to prepare the agarose gel and load my samples.