Photo by Paul EflandBy Phil Williams
While the world fights cancer, heart disease and AIDS, protozoan parasites alone kill almost 5 million people a year.
Most of these deaths occur in countries with poor medical facilities, but Western scientists have also lagged in understanding parasitic diseases. Kojo Mensa-Wilmot finds that unacceptable, and the assistant professor of cellular biology is devoting his life to understanding the biochemistry of parasites that infect human cells--and looking for ways to stop them in their tracks.
"I was born in Ghana, where malaria caused by a protozoan parasite is endemic," says Mensa-Wilmot, "so the urgency of the situation was easy for me to grasp. The potential benefit of a cure--or of ways to manage diseases--makes work in this field even more exciting and worthwhile."
Mensa-Wilmot's work has already attracted attention nationally and internationally, and his research is inching closer and closer to finding the "Achilles heel" of a protozoan parasite called Trypanosoma brucei, which causes a disease that affects both human beings and agricultural animals. He is also studying a serious disorder called leishmaniasis, common in Africa and Asia. His discoveries so far could even one day help us understand human diseases that are not caused by parasites.
With such important goals, it's not surprising that Mensa-Wilmot is a passionate advocate for his work. But it might be surprising to learn his heroes are the great jazz musicians Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey and Duke Ellington. He explains that they became great not just because of what they achieved, but because of what they overcame.
Mensa-Wilmot still finds it somewhat amazing that he has traveled from the country roads of Ghana to prominence as a young biomedical researcher in the United States.
He discovered science in high school, under the guidance of an outstanding chemistry teacher. When he went to the University of Ghana in Legon, he took few courses on parasitic diseases, although he was always aware of the gravity of the problem. At about that time, the World Health Organization began a push against what it called "great neglected diseases."
After graduating in Ghana, Mensa-Wilmot entered the doctoral program in biological chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Coming to the United States for the first time was far more difficult than he expected.
"It was really traumatic," he says with a smile. "I didn't know how shocking the whole experience would be. I had no family here and no friends and had just come over to go to school. But everything was so different. For the first few days I just stayed in my dorm room or went to class because I felt so out of place. The people were different, the buses were different--everything looked strange. And the food was awful."
Mensa-Wilmot's innate curiosity finally overcame his fears, however, and he began to learn about the United States. He fell in love with jazz and started collecting albums from the century's masters--Gillespie, Blakey, Ellington and John Coltrane.
"Part of my coming to jazz was that I saw what they suffered through, and yet they still left a body of work," says Mensa-Wilmot. "Coupled with all the musicians who were subsequently trained by Dizzy and Art, their achievements are just outstanding."
In 1991, after a Rockefeller Foundation post-doctoral fellowship, he joined the faculty at UGA, teaching cellular biology to undergraduates and biochemistry and parasitology to graduate students.
Mensa-Wilmot's lab is at the forefront of research in understanding how the parasite T. brucei is able to skirt mammalian defense systems and cause disease. The parasite seems to change its surface coat to evade white blood cells, complicating the task of developing vaccines.
However, although part of a surface protein called VSG is distinct for each parasite, another component--the GPI anchor, which attaches the proteins to the membranes--remains the same. The GPI anchor may be the "Achilles heel" of protozoan parasites. Interfering with the GPI anchor could make the parasites less virulent or completely eliminate them.
