Biospherea 2025 Year in Review
Published on Dec 22, 2025 07:18 AM
As is tradition, 2025 in the Biospherea community officially began on the 15th of January with a community and members-only session that reminded us of our mission and vision and effectively set the tone for the rest of the year. Between then and the 6th of December, which marked the finale of Biospherea’s 5th anniversary, we held 80 biweekly sessions, including journal club meetings, training sessions on poster design and science communication, a graduate school application panel, mental health sessions, and open discussions. The sessions covered diverse topics such as neurodevelopment, diabetes, augmented reality, genomics, sickle cell disease, and genetic counselling, to name a few.
Open Discussion – April 2025
One open discussion that stood out focused on Creativity & Innovation in African Research, facilitated by Gloria Olaleye and Ibrahim Hassan. The goal was to explore how creativity and innovation overlap in African scientific research from the perspective of young bioscientists. The session was structured around four discussion angles.
In the first angle, the facilitators examined the current research landscape and prompted participants to share their ongoing projects and their potential impact on local problems. Participants also discussed defining characteristics of African research, including its strengths and limitations, particularly from personal experience.
The second angle dissected creativity as a scientific tool. Participants shared their views on creativity in science and gave examples of how creative thinking had led to breakthroughs in their work. The third angle explored innovation and its challenges. Participants discussed the barriers African researchers face when trying to innovate and proposed potential solutions. A recurring theme here was the lack of funding, with examples of self-funded undergraduate projects cited.
To conclude, the final angle brought the discussions together by asking participants to share three core values they would prioritise if given the opportunity to lead a research project.
You can join the conversation by answering some of the questions in the attached slides. Feel free to tag Biospherea on social media if you’re inspired to share your thoughts.
Biospherea Budding Researcher Program (BBRP)
In the spirit of nurturing young scientists and following suggestions from Adeboye Bamgboye, we launched the first-ever BBRP, aimed at equipping members with basic research and data analysis skills. The program had two tracks—scientific communication and data analysis—and 16 participants. The scientific communication track covered topics including plagiarism, writing a scientific paper, and visual and oral communication. The data analysis track introduced participants to basic Python programming syntax and data visualisation in R.
Feedback from the program suggests that it should continue, with some adjustments to content documentation, content depth, and record keeping.
Biospherea at 5
On the 5th and 6th of December, Biospherea celebrated its 5th anniversary, themed “AI-driven bioscience: from data to discovery.” We hosted a lineup of speakers with diverse experiences, including African biotech founders, PhD students, and postdoctoral fellows, who shared insights on leveraging AI to boost the continent’s bioeconomy. We had the pleasure of having Dr Oladipo Elijah Kolawole, Founder of Helix Biogen Institute, as the keynote speaker. Poster sessions enabled research students to share their work with a large audience and receive feedback, both directly and through Q&A.
Recordings of the event are available on our YouTube channel
- Biospherea 5th anniversary - Day 1
- Biospherea 5th anniversary - Day 2
Thank you for being a part of our 2025!