Following Your Passions

Ever since obtaining my medical degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, my passion has been to advance my medicine through research. I practiced medicine in Nigeria for several years. During that time, I realized that to make a difference for cancer patients, we needed to do more research.

I therefore decided to do a fellowship in clinical oncology at the University of Chicago. My clinical advisor, Harvey Golomb, suggested I get into genetics because it was going to be a hot field. I followed his advice, and from 1989 to 1991 I was a post-doctoral tellow in the laboratory of Janet Rowley, a renowned cancer geneticist. She was an amazing role model. Not only is she a great scientist, but she is very supportive of her students and postdocs.

While I was in her lab, I discovered a new tumor suppressor gene on chromosome 9. I continued to work with tumor suppressor genes, investigating their roles in breast cancer predisposition, after establishing my own research group.

Then I had another realization. If I sit in my own lab and focus on the molecule I am interested in, I will get into a comfort zone. I can get funded every year and publish papers. But I am a physician-scientist. Once a week I attend the clinic and see women die from breast cancer. That tells me that I cannot do this work alone. The m ore people I can get to contribute to finding cures for cancer, the faster we will succeed.

This was the motivation for setting up the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics at the University of Chicago. The center provides a platform for the exchange of ideas and information among basic scientists, clinicians, and patients. At the time we established the center in 2000, there was no infrastructure in place to do this kind of collaborative, multidisciplinary work at the university.

Funding avenues were also very limited. We were fortunate to obtain support from the Ralph and Marion Falk Medical Research Trust in Chicago. Today, the National Institutes of Health's roadmap has made translational research a priority. In a way, we were ahead of the curve.

It is difficult to wear different hats and serve as the go-between among various disciplines. But someone has to be in the middle. And to do that you need to understand both the basic science and the clinical implications. Physician-scientists are invaluable for this kind of effort, and it concerns me that we have a shortage of them. We need to train more physician-scientists and remove the existing barriers to their career development.

In addition to supporting translational research in the United States, I have started a clinical trial for a pill form of chemotherapy for women with breast cancer in Nigeria. We have been preparing for the trial for the past 3 years. Teams from the University of Ibadan have come to the United States to receive training, and we have sent our teams there to help develop best practices. I grew up in Nigeria, and yet the thought of doing research across two continents was daunting. But it is amazing what modern communication technologies allow us.

The process for getting approval to conduct a clinical trial in a developing country was long and difficult. There were few guidelines available to us, and most of them were in relation to AIDS. But now the infrastructure we were able to develop will serve to help other scientists bring cancer research to developing countries.

Most patients in developing countries do not have access to cancer treatment. We now have an opportunity to bring modern therapies to them. In this country, cancer therapy developed by giving drug A to a patient and then, if that did not work, drug B, followed by drug C. In Nigeria, we don't have to repeat the same history. From the start we can tailor treatment to individual patients using genetic information.

I never expected to receive a McArthur Fellowship in 2005. I am still shocked when I think about it. It has been a life-transforming event. My colleagues now pay more attention to what I am saying. That means I can do more to help women suffering from breast cancer in the United States, to support research in Africa, and to be a role model for women scientists everywhere. What I have learned is that you should always follow your dreams and passions because you never know what will happen. That's what I was doing when I received the award.