The unlikely path that Thumbi Ndung’u followed to become a world-class AIDS researcher began in a rural highland village in Kenya. Ndung’u grew up with five brothers and five sisters in a house with no running water or electricity. He picked coffee beans and milked the family cows when he wasn’t at school. By Kenyan standards, he was middle class, and his father was a hardworking teacher at a neighborhood school. It would take a series of lucky breaks for this gifted scientist to wend his way to the Ph.D. program at Harvard University, becoming the first scientist to clone HIV subtype C—the most prevalent strain of HIV in Africa and one long ignored by Western scientists.

This year Ndung’u, 43, was awarded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s International Early Career Scientist award, which gives him five years of funding to pursue his work on genes in the immune system that help to fight AIDS and may lead to a vaccine. He heads the HIV Path­o­gen­es­is Program at the University of Kwa­Zulu-Natal, located in a corner of South Africa where HIV prevalence hovers at 39.5 percent, placing it among the hard­est-hit populations in the world. With a broad smile and unshakable optimism, he mentors up-and-coming African scientists, whose thank-you notes line his modest office, which has just enough room to squeeze in a second chair.

6 Comments

1. 1. sheriff 12:36 PM 5/19/12

   How heartwarming to see a brilliant young scientist dedicating his research for alleviating a social disaster that cripples human health particularly in Africa. I like to bring to the kind notice of the young scientist one of the article, my response and the responses received along with the response of others and my reply to that response. I am posting this for your kind attention to make me understand, at the same time appreciate your scientific endeavours to abate the agony of many patients-
   Katherine Rowland of Nature magazine.Totally Drug-Resistant TB Emerges in India
   Discovery of a deadly form of TB highlights crisis of 'mismanagement'.January 13, 2012 | 6
   
   To this article I wrote a reply stating that
   Tuberculosis is a problem of great concern for community medicine and care. Drug resistance is a problem of self-medication, non-compliance with drug intake, poor nutrition and possibly poor diagnostic tools available. It is a common disease associated with AIDS. In general it is an immunocompromised disorder due probably to many medical and envrionmental factors. It is also an issue of poor dissemination of true scientific information. Above all as suggested the drug industry has not taken much interest in the study or producing adequate quantities of medicine because of market considerations. Yet we need to understand it is a problem of great concern which medical fraternity, scientific community and corporate pharmaceutical industry must take notice. It must initiate necessary steps to tackle the problem as it is a socio-medical problem facing a vulnerable population possibly stricken with poverty. ds sheriff
   I saw one of the replies:Sheriff: Why do you believe "we must" do anything at all. In an extremely overpopulated world, this is a good thing. We should stand back and allow people to die. The homo sapien is the worst life-form on planet earth and needs to be eliminated. The sixth extinction is a direct consequence of the homo sapien's greed and irrational behaviour. We eat everything that moves and breed like flies.
   
   Irrational religious beliefs demand unhindered breeding, yet demand scientific intervention to prevent naturally occurring deaths during childhood, diseases, famine and prediction of natural calamities to save lives. If religions believe unrestricted breeding is right, so would death during childbirth, by disease, and as a result of famine and other natural calamities and no effort should be made to prevent them.
   
   If you believe in a god, you should not do anything to save lives.
   This was my reply:
   Why do you believe "we must" do anything at all. In an extremely overpopulated world, this is a good thing. We should stand back and allow people to die.--
   
   This statement from the esteemed author shocks me and questions my understanding of human race. I believed that Medicine stands on the concept of "to treat and save lives." I thought Dr.Albert Schweitzer wanted us to believe and practice based on the ethical insight "Reverence for Life." How can irrational behaviors and beliefs of some could influence medical decisions and propagate the concept of "doom" and death. I could not prescribe to the idea that believers must stand in anticipation for God's Help for God helps those who help themselves. I believe in God in you. i.e. seeing what is good in you and your soul Your soul reflects God's creation. Still we are far from the madding crowd that believes in "we create". Exploitation is a game played cleverly on innocent victims like ordinary citizens. We are what you are; loving and caring beings and love is the candle that will illuminate human soul and save lives. Population growth is your concern for we believe every child born carries a candle of hope and future. Please come out of " breed and survive you can" and guide those who needs guidance and help in the form of drugs and drug research. Eugenics is not the norm and race is not the seal for survival.
   This is a belated reply as I could see the reply today only. ds sheriff.
   
   

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2. 2. ironjustice 09:53 AM 6/18/12

   The problem may lie in the HOST of the virus'?
   The obligate herbivore-frugivore hypothesis of man states virus' , bacteria , fungi are controlled by the levels of iron in the body.
   As herbivore-frugivores we normally absorb and retain very little iron BUT when this herbivore-frugivore , human , consumes meat , the highly absorbable form of iron , heme iron , NOW allows the body to accumulate iron to a high level which allows the virus' , bacteria , fungi to NOW access this iron and cause disease.
   This is evidenced by high dietary iron intake and high Hiv and tuberculosis rates.
   "Iron Chelation as Therapy for HIV and Mycobacterium tuberculosis Co-Infection Under Conditions of Iron Overload"
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16787239
   
   It is also evidenced by the effect of the natural iron chelator phytic acid has on HIV.
   "Inhibitory effect of inositol hexasulfate and inositol hexaphosphoric acid (phytic acid) on the proliferation of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in vitro"
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2614100

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3. 3. ironjustice 10:03 AM 6/18/12

   "In normal persons the antibacterial and antifungal properties of blood and other tissue fluids cannot be maintained unless there are exceptionally low levels of available iron. This is controlled by the presence of the unsaturated iron-binding proteins, transferrin and lactoferrin. In several clinical conditions an abnormal availability of iron is responsible for fatal septicaemia. This is because the phagocytic system is overwhelmed by rapidly growing organisms when iron is freely available."
   
   

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4. 4. ironjustice 10:32 AM 6/18/12

   "HIV & Tuberculosis Disease: Iron balance and iron-regulatory system alterations correlate with HIV and TB disease progression"
   
   http://ww1.aegis.org/pubs/aidswkly/2006/AW060710.html

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5. 5. jgrosay 04:34 PM 6/18/12

   The search for a C viral hepatitis vaccine is older, hope both succeed soon!

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6. 6. ironjustice 09:27 PM 6/19/12

   "The search for a C viral hepatitis vaccine is older, hope both succeed soon"
   
   Is Hepatitis C linked to the host and their iron levels leading to their virus ?
   "Normalization of Elevated Hepatic 8-Hydroxy-2'-Deoxyguanosine Levels in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients by Phlebotomy and Low Iron Diet"

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