Georgia Mae Dunston | |
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 Dunston in 2008 | |
| Born | August 4th 1944 Norfolk, Virginia U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Human Genetics |
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| Thesis | Immunogenetic studies of the XH system of human serum alpha-globulin (1973) |
| Doctoral advisor | H. Gershowitz |
Georgia Mae Dunston (born August 4, 1944) is an American geneticist who is professor of human immunogenetics at Howard University and founding director of the National Human Genome Center at Howard University. [1]
Georgia Mae Dunston was born in Norfolk, Virginia, to a hard working African-American family.[ citation needed ] Her parents did not attend college but instead worked various commercial jobs. Ulysses, her father, was employed as a cook at a commercial barbecue wholesaler and Rosa, her mother, worked as a cleaner, presser, and dishwasher.[ citation needed ] While growing up Dunston attended the local Baptist church and Sunday school. [2] Dunston has credited her interest in genetics in part to having grown up in a segregated town and "curiosity about the differences in people." [3]
Close to graduating high school, Dunston was unsure about going to college since no one in her family had gone to college and she was expected to work. [4] Despite this, she acquired a keen interest in Human biology and decided to continue her scientific education. [5] Dunston ended up graduating in the top tier of her class and earned a full scholarship to Norfolk State University. [6]
Dunston received a B.S. in Biology from Norfolk State University and then, after being granted a Carver research Fellowship, gained a M.S. degree in Biology at Tuskegee University. [7] [8] Dunston used paper Chromatography and Electrophoresis to study biochemical differences in DNA in pigeons for her master's thesis. [6] David Aminoff, now an Emeritus Professor at the University of Michigan, who taught Georgia biochemistry at Tuskegee was very impressed with her work ethic and performance, and aided her in gaining funding for a doctorate in human genetics. [9] [10] [6]
In 1972 Dunston earned a PhD in human genetics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. [11] Among other things, she found that the Xh and Pa 1 antigens are identical and that they could be isotypic markers. Additionally she found that anti-Xh was reactive in the sera of Old and New world monkeys but not of Prosimian or lesser mammals, concluding that the isotypic specificity among the higher mammals arose during the speciation process. [12]
After attaining her doctorate in 1972, Dunston took up a position as associate professor on the faculty of the microbiology department at Howard University. [7] In 1975–1976, Dunston undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, alongside her faculty position, focusing on tumor immunology. [8] During this time Dunston consulted for the Job Corps Sickle Cell Anemia Program for the U. S. Department of Labor, the Cancer Coordinating Council for Metropolitan Washington, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the Genetic Basis of Disease Review Committee. [8] Dunston's Associate professorship ended in 1978.
In 1982, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dunston was appointed as a scientist at the National Cancer Institute Laboratory of Immunodiagnosis. There she specialized in the immunogenetic characteristics of human killer cells.
Three years later, Dunston was given the opportunity to direct the Human Immunogenetics Laboratory. [10] During this stage of her career she was interested in genetic variations in human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes and antigens and their relations with disease in African-Americans. Improvements in the understanding of these genes and antigens could aid the difficulties of receiving organ transplants for African-Americans, whilst also shedding light on their role in general immunological processes. [13] [14] Between 1988 and 1989 Dunston was the co-principal investigator of a NIAID grant to further work on transplantation for Native and African Americans, particularly in histocompatibility testing of transplantation antigens. [8]
From 1991 to 1994, Dunston acted as associate director of the Division of Basic Sciences at Howard University Cancer Center. [7] During this time she contributed to a special report on organ donation for the black community. [15] In the mid-1990s Dunston was one of the first researchers to join the then new Visiting Investigator's Program (VIP) in the National Human Genome Research Institute. She collaborated with the then director Dr. Francis Collins, the scientist who led the Human Genome Project, publishing work on the genetics of type 2 diabetes in West Africa. [16] [17]
In 2001, the partnership between Howard University and the NIH Office of Research on Minority Health provided the foundations for the National Human Genome Center (NHGC). Dunston founded and directed the NHGC with an "unprecented leadership" team at Howard University. Dunston and her team, at the NHGC and Howard University, built a national and international research collaboration focusing on the genetics of diseases common in African Americans and other African diaspora populations. [6]
As a full professor at Howard University, Dunston and her group's current research is centered on the exploitation of the power of population diversity in quantifying the information content of the human genome. [1] [6]
The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a large locus on vertebrate DNA containing a set of closely linked polymorphic genes that code for cell surface proteins essential for the adaptive immune system. These cell surface proteins are called MHC molecules.
The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system or complex is a complex of genes on chromosome 6 in humans which encode cell-surface proteins responsible for regulation of the immune system. The HLA system is also known as the human version of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) found in many animals.
The ABO blood group system is used to denote the presence of one, both, or neither of the A and B antigens on erythrocytes. For human blood transfusions, it is the most important of the 44 different blood type classification systems currently recognized by the International Society of Blood Transfusions (ISBT) as of December 2022. A mismatch in this, or any other serotype, can cause a potentially fatal adverse reaction after a transfusion, or an unwanted immune response to an organ transplant. The associated anti-A and anti-B antibodies are usually IgM antibodies, produced in the first years of life by sensitization to environmental substances such as food, bacteria, and viruses.
Jean-Baptiste-Gabriel-Joachim Dausset was a French immunologist born in Toulouse, France. Dausset received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1980 along with Baruj Benacerraf and George Davis Snell for their discovery and characterisation of the genes making the major histocompatibility complex. Using the money from his Nobel Prize and a grant from the French Television, Dausset founded the Human Polymorphism Study Center (CEPH) in 1984, which was later renamed the Foundation Jean Dausset-CEPH in his honour. He married Rose Mayoral in 1963, with whom he had two children, Henri and Irène. Jean Dausset died on June 6, 2009, in Majorca, Spain, at the age of 92.
Jan Klein was a Czech–American immunologist.
The term human blood group systems is defined by the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) as systems in the human species where cell-surface antigens—in particular, those on blood cells—are "controlled at a single gene locus or by two or more very closely linked homologous genes with little or no observable recombination between them", and include the common ABO and Rh (Rhesus) antigen systems, as well as many others; 44 human systems are identified as of December 2022.
Tissue typing is a procedure in which the tissues of a prospective donor and recipient are tested for compatibility prior to transplantation. Mismatched donor and recipient tissues can lead to rejection of the tissues. There are multiple methods of tissue typing.
Immunogenetics or immungenetics is the branch of Medical Immunology and Medical Genetics that explores the relationship between the immune system and genetics.
Major histocompatibility complex, class II, DQ beta 1, also known as HLA-DQB1, is a human gene and also denotes the genetic locus that contains this gene. The protein encoded by this gene is one of two proteins that are required to form the DQ heterodimer, a cell surface receptor essential to the function of the immune system.
Lysine-specific demethylase 5D is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the KDM5D gene. KDM5D belongs to the alpha-ketoglutarate-dependent hydroxylases superfamily.
Complement C4-A is a kind of the Complement component 4 protein that in humans is encoded by the C4A gene.
James Van Gundia Neel was an American geneticist who played a key role in the development of human genetics as a field of research in the United States. He made important contributions to the emergence of genetic epidemiology and pursued an understanding of the influence of environment on genes. In his early work, he studied sickle-cell disease and thalassemia conducted research on the effects of radiation on survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombing.
Dorothea Bennett was a geneticist, known for the genetics of early mammalian development and for research into mammalian sperm surface structures and their role in fertilization and spermatogenesis. She was "one of the major figures in mouse developmental genetics".
Mitali Mukerji is a Professor and Head of the Department of Bioscience and Bioengineering, IIT Jodhpur. She was formerly a Chief Scientist at the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology with notable achievement in the field of human genomics and personalized medicine. She is best known for initiating the field of "Ayurgenomics" in partnership with her colleague Dr. Bhavana Prasher under the mentorship of Prof. Samir K. Brahmachari. Ayurgenomics is an innovative study, blending the principles of Ayurveda- the traditional Indian system of medicine- with genomics. Mukerji is also a major contributor in the Indian Genome Variation Consortium, a comprehensive database that is producing "the first genetic landscape of the Indian population", and has been an author in many publications that use IGV databases to study population genomics. Mukerji has done extensive research on hereditary ataxias, and is involved in many other projects related to tracking disease origins and mutational histories. She is the recipient of the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 2010 for her contribution in the field of Medical Sciences.
Narinder Kumar Mehra is an Indian immunologist, head of the department of transplant immunology and immunogenetics of the SRL Limited, Gurgaon. He is a former dean of research and holds the ICMR Dr. C.G. Pandit National Chair at AIIMS. An elected fellow of the International Medical Sciences Academy, The World Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and National Academy of Sciences, India, Mehra is known for his research on histocompatibility and immunogenetics. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 1992. He received the Chevalier of the National Order of Merit from François Mitterrand in 2003.
Camillo Ricordi is a diabetes researcher based in Miami, FL. He currently serves as Director of the Diabetes Research Institute, a position he has held since 1996. He is the Chief Academic Officer of the Diabetes Research Institute of the University of Miami and is director of the DRI's Cell Transplant Center. He has been active in stem cell research and its applications to treating diabetes, particularly Type 1 Diabetes. He specializes in pancreatic islet transplantation.
Charles Nohuoma Rotimi is the Scientific Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). He joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2008 as the inaugural Director of the Trans-NIH Center for Research in Genomics and Global Health and was also the chief of the NHGRI's Metabolic, Cardiovascular, and Inflammatory Disease Genomics Branch. He works to ensure that population genetics include genomes from African populations and founded the African Society of Human Genetics in 2003 and was elected its first president. Rotimi was instrumental in the launch of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) with the NIH and the Wellcome Trust. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2018.
Tameka A. Clemons is an African American biochemist at Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine at University of Houston in Houston, Texas. Clemons holds the title of Clinical Associate Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. Her research focuses on exploring the link between Type II diabetes and Alzheimer's disease by analyzing the aberrant biochemical signaling networks in pancreatic beta-cells and neuronal cells that leads to cell death in Type II diabetes and Alzheimer's Disease. Clemons was one of the inaugural recipients of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Minority Ph.D. Program Fellowship and in 2020, she was named one of the top 100 Inspiring Black Scientists in America by CellPress.
Charmaine DM Royal is an American geneticist and Associate Professor at the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy and the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University. She studies the intersections of race, ethnicity, ancestry genetics, and health, especially as they pertain to historically marginalized and underrepresented groups in genetic and genomic research; and genomics and global health. Her major interest is in addressing root causes and implementing sustainable solutions regarding problems of race and racism in research, healthcare, and society. Royal is a Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Independent Expert Committee (IEC) member appointed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is a 2020 Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa.
Rose Marise Ostroff Payne was an American molecular biologist. She was best known for her discovery and contributions to understanding of the human major histocompatibility complex, the human leukocyte antigen. Her colleagues referred to her as "The Mother of HLA".
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