Tell us about where you work. What do you do there, and who do you work with?
I work for a medical research organization called ‘Kenya Medical Research Institute’. I am based at the Centre for Global health, in Kisumu city on the shores of Lake Victoria.
I have been involved in medical research and teaching for the last thirty years. In that time I have collaborated with international groups like CDC Kenya, Waltereed Army Research, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), State University of New York (SUNY), University of Massachusetts (UMASS), University of Minnesota (UMN) and Ministry Of Health for Kenya.
What are your primary areas of research? What are your aims in these areas?
My research focus has been on clinical malaria & chemotherapy responses, malaria vector behaviour & use of chemical impregnated materials, eave based curtains and sisal strands, indoor residual spraying as control tools, and bio-assays for evaluation of chemical specificity. I have also evaluated the impact of malaria exposure on endemic Burkitt lymphoma (eBL) (childhood cancer) in western Kenya. I conducted this research because of the common presence of malaria parasites and Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) in the eBL tumors in this region. The two agents have not proved to be sole etiological managers of this disease.
Lately my research has included GPX selenium, a selenoprotein whose deficiency is associated with increased oxidative stress, increased EBV and high malaria parasites. The study aims to understand the role of malaria and selenium in the process leading to DNA changes and subsequent tumor development. It is our hypothesis that frequent maternal exposure to malaria in areas with reduced dietary selenium intake has the consequences of intrauterine foetal birth restriction and poor gene pool development.
The rural Kenyan population are further exposed to poor environment conditions associated with anthropogenic activities, agrichemicals, firewood smoke and other fossil fuels which expose the foetus to gases like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). All this may contribute to the multistep development of cancer in the sub-population, which is what I would like to research in future.
What contributions have you made to these areas so far? What is the broader importance of your contributions to these areas?
The outcome of our work can be seen in many of my publications. Recently we demonstrated that GPX selenium and malnutrition affects the EBV and malaria densities in the eBL high risk area. This study was published in the British journal of cancer in 2010.
I am also working on a manuscript to outline the role of other micronutrient antioxidants in the spatial distribution of eBL in the region. The outcome can be supportive in disease prevention through supplementation of selenium or any key antioxidants.
What directions do you expect your research in these areas to take in the near future?
I am planning evaluations of: selenium species and their levels in expectant mothers, heavy metals from soil around specified residential areas, crop sampling, and monitoring of nutrition transition. This should give us an idea of what is in the environment and how that affects the population when they are exposed to it.
What do you consider to be the most important recent developments in your areas of research?
One of the key developments in my research is teaming up with other researchers from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda under the banner EMBLEM (epidemiology of Burkitt lymphoma in East African Children and Minors). The forum will provide room to understand the bio-availability of different biomarkers in populations who may be exposed to different environmental aggressors, food and possible genetic profiling.
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