October 1998
Student-Researcher Studies
Sickle Cell Anemia at
National Intitute of HealthFew undergraduate students can say that they spent their summer working in the laboratories of the National Institute of Health on important medical research. Probably fewer still get to explain their research directly to the Surgeon General of the United States. This was the summer experience of Chukwuka Okafor, a biochemistry major and one of 24 undergraduate students nationwide who have been selected for the NIH Undergraduate Scholarship Program.
For 12 weeks this summer, Okafor worked in the laboratory of Dr. Grissin Rogers, chief of the Division of Molecular and Clinical Hematology at the NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. Okafor and his colleagues constructed a novel protein that has applications for gene therapy in sickle cell anemia. This novel protein genetically increases the production of hemoglobin A2, which is known to inhibit the polymerization, or clumping, of sickle cell hemoglobin. The "clumping" of hemoglobin cells is the prime reason why victims of this genetic disease experience episodes of severe pain and a variety of other symptoms, including strokes.
At the end of his twelve weeks of intense research, Okafor presented his work at the annual summer research poster session held at the NIH, before researchers, visiting scientists, and the Surgeon General.
Okafor's NIH scholarship grant has been extended for another year, so he can look forward to returning to the NIH lab next summer. Under the conditions of the Undergraduate Scholarship Program, recipients must plan to spend a year working with NIH for every year of scholarship assistance they receive. For Okafor, who plans to go to medical school, this could mean spending two years of his residency at the NIH, which would hardly seem like a burden.
"It is an opportunity that before I could only dream about--it is very, very competitive to get a research position at the NIH, and I am guaranteed a space--it is a tremendous opportunity," he said.
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