These voices guide our mission.
CATRDR
CATRDR
Mapping Rare Diseases in the Global Majority Before It’s Too Late The future of healthcare is being built — but half the world is missing from the data.
THE CRISIS
A mother travels by boat every two weeks for her 8-year-old son who cannot walk properly. Every hospital gives a different guess. There is no genetic testing. There is no registry. He is invisible to global medical systems.
A girl suffering from repeated seizures is labelled "possessed" by some, "undiagnosed" by others. Her genetic variant is not in global datasets — so results come back as VUS: Variant of Unknown Significance.
A boy with a treatable bleeding disorder receives incomplete reports because his Javanese ancestry is not represented in global reference genomes. His condition has a cure — but not for him.
Families travel across the country for answers. A child with a rare metabolic disorder is misdiagnosed three times. Genetic labs say: "Your variant is not found in global databases." Because those databases were not built for her.
South Asian and African families suffer disproportionately from undiagnosed rare disorders. AI diagnostic tools are unreliable for them. Clinical trial criteria exclude them. They are British — but their genes are strangers to the system.
Rare diseases in Mixtec, Maya, Otomí and other Indigenous groups remain undocumented. Children present with rare syndromes — but zero global frameworks exist to diagnose them.
We Cannot Fix What We Do Not Measure
Yet most of these patterns have never been recorded for Africa, South Asia, Latin America,
Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Indigenous Nations or diaspora communities.
Mapping rare diseases in these populations is not a luxury — it is ancestral
justice.
It ensures that:
A Dangerous Future
Longevity and geroscience promise rejuvenation therapies, AI-ageing models, epigenetic clocks, early detection of ageing diseases, and healthspan extension.
But these tools fail when ancestry data is missing.
Without mapping rare diseases — the foundation of genetic equity — the Global Majority will be:
A world where the Global North lives longer while the Global Majority is excluded from innovations is unacceptable.
The First Global-Majority Rare Disease & Ancestry Registry
Documenting rare and chronic diseases in underrepresented communities worldwide to reveal hidden patterns.
Creating the world's first ancestry-specific health datasets for precision medicine and regenerative research.
Bridging researchers, clinicians, governments, families, and biotech to accelerate discovery and access.
Designing equitable clinical pathways to gene therapy, stem-cell treatments, and advanced care for all ancestries.
Guaranteeing the Global Majority — African, Asian, Indigenous, and mixed-ancestry populations — belong in the future of medicine.
Advancing geroscience and human longevity research with inclusive, ancestry-aware models for universal benefit.
Your Story Matters
Your story. Your ancestry. Your right to be seen.
Whether you are a patient, parent, clinician, researcher, or advocate — you belong
here.
Real Stories That Fuel Our Mission
These voices guide our mission.
"We don't know what our children are suffering from. No one can tell us."
"We were told it was spiritual. Then we were told nothing could be done."
"Our child's condition exists — but not in the systems made for others."
"For six years we searched for a name to our daughter's suffering."
"My test results always say 'uncertain'. Does the system not understand people like us?"
"No one has ever mapped our diseases. We have been invisible for generations."
A Global Call to Action
Map rare diseases in the Global Majority
Build inclusive ancestry datasets
Integrate mapping with advanced therapy pathways
Train local clinicians to recognise rare diseases
Include Africa, Asia, LATAM, and Indigenous nations in longevity science
Brings us closer to a world where
medicine belongs to everyone.
Every child lost because they were never in the data — is why we exist.
East Africa • Age 9
He loved football. Dreamed of flying planes.
Then came leukemia. Aggressive, but treatable — if a stem-cell match existed.
“Mama, when I get better, can I go back to school?”
They searched everywhere. Local. National. Global.
No match. Because his ancestry was never mapped.
He died holding his mother’s hand — not because medicine failed, but because the world never included him.
East Africa • Age 5
In a small district hospital, a five-year-old fought a disease that had a cure.
His parents prayed. Doctors searched. Communities rallied.
But no donor registry existed for his people. No genetic map. No cord blood bank.
The match never came.
By the time help arrived — it was too late.
He became one of thousands lost — not to medicine, but to scientific invisibility.
CATRDR is not just a registry.
It is a rescue mission for billions.
Map the Global Majority
Build donor registries where none exist
Enable stem-cell & gene therapy access
Preserve cord blood in underserved regions
End preventable deaths from lack of matching
Give every ancestry a future
These were two children.
There will be millions more — unless we act now.
The Global Majority deserves to be seen, mapped,
diagnosed.
No community left behind. No ancestry invisible.
No rare disease patient should be left behind.
