Felix Konotey-Ahulu

Last updated

Felix I. D. Konotey-Ahulu

FGA, FRCPSG, FRCP, FWACP
Born
Felix Israel Domeno Konotey-Ahulu

(1930-07-12) 12 July 1930 (age 93)
Odumase-Krobo, Gold Coast
Nationality Ghanaian
Other namesFelix Israel Domeno
Alma mater
Occupation(s) Professor, physician, scientist
Known for Sickle-cell disease research [3]

Felix Israel Domeno Konotey-Ahulu FGA, FRCPSG, FRCP, FWACP (born 12 July 1930) is a Ghanaian physician and scientist who is Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and a consultant physician/genetic counsellor, Haemoglobinopathy/Sickle Cell States, in Harley Street, London. [4] He is one of the world's foremost experts on sickle-cell disease. [5]

Contents

Education

Felix Israel Domeno Konotey-Ahulu was born in Odumase-Krobo, Gold Coast (now Ghana). He attended the Basel/Presbyterian Mission Schools, and at Achimota School (1947–49) took the Cambridge School Certificate (Grade I) and the London Matriculation (1st Division), subsequently going to University College of the Gold Coast (1951–53). He went on to London University, where he read medicine (University College London and Westminster Hospital School of Medicine). He graduated with MB BS, Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons, LRCP in 1959. [6]

After full registration in the UK, he joined the Ghana Civil Service as Medical Officer, with subsequent postings at the University of Ghana Medical School and the Ministry of Health at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, where he directed the largest sickle-cell disease clinic in the world. [7] Post-graduate studies took him to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Westminster Hospital, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, and Professor (later Dame) Sheila Sherlock's Department of Medicine at the Royal Free Hospital, London, where he was Research Fellow.

Early career

He went back to Ghana to Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and University of Ghana Medical School as Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer. He conducted research into Clinical Haemoglobinopathy and, together with Professors Bela Ringelhann (Hungary), Hermann Lehmann (University of Cambridge), and others he discovered Haemoglobin Korle-Bu and Haemoglobin Osu-Christiansborg. He was Physician Specialist at Korle-Bu Hospital and Ridge Hospital, Accra, and Director of the erstwhile Ghana Institute of Clinical Genetics.

In 1972, he was National Foundation/March of Dimes Visiting Lecturer to 11 American Medical Schools, including Yale Medical School, George Washington University Medical School, Howard University College of Medicine, Cornell, Rockefeller, Indianapolis, Tennessee and Johns Hopkins.

He was Andrew N. Schofield Fellow, Christ's College, Cambridge (1970–71), and in 1976 he gave Edinburgh University’s MacArthur Postgraduate Lecture. Konotey-Ahulu has lectured in Turkey, Brazil, Greece, Singapore, Australia, India, Hungary, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden (Stockholm) and, on the African continent, in Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa and Egypt. He did Grand Rounds at the NIH (Bethesda), George Washington University, Johns Hopkins, Howard University, Illinois and Chicago universities, and in Cook County Hospital, Chicago.

He was once editor of the Ghana Medical Journal , chairman of a Ghanaian Government Committee to Investigate Hospital Fees, member of the WHO Expert Committee Advisory Panel on Human Genetics, and a temporary consultant to the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Medical Department in London. In March 1980, he was the University of Ghana Alumni Lecturer on the subject "Genes and Society, and Society and Genes". Professor Roland Scott invited him as Annual Visiting Professor to Howard University College of Medicine, and as Honorary Consultant to its Centre for Sickle Cell Disease, Washington DC. [8]

Honours and awards

Reading in New African magazine (August/September 2004) that he had been voted among "The One Hundred Greatest Africans Of All Time", he promptly pleaded in the October issue that he be replaced by Aggrey of Africa, whom Konotey-Ahulu proved by a 1,600-word article to be altogether more worthy of such honour. In September 2005, he gave five consecutive public lectures at the British Council Accra, on Contemporary Health Issues, in commemoration of the 115th anniversary of the Scripture Union in Ghana.

African health research

In March 1998, Konotey-Ahulu was appointed Chief Visiting Clinician/Scientist, Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), and he is on the editorial board of the African Journal of Health Sciences of The African Forum of Health Sciences. Between 1965 and 2005 he published more than 200 articles, letters, editorials, book reviews, and comments. He has been round Sub-Saharan African countries studying AIDS, and has published What is AIDS? (227 pages), The Sickle Cell Disease Patient (643 pages), and one booklet, Sickle Cell Disease – The Case For Family Planning (32 pages). Ghana's Managing Trustees of the VALCO Trust Fund supported much of his research. Konotey-Ahulu is a former examiner at the University of Ghana Medical School. In April 2000, he was appointed "Dr Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics, University of Cape Coast, Ghana" after having been awarded an honorary DSc degree. His inaugural lecture was titled "Human Genetics and the Ghanaian African: How The New Genetics Affects You". In 2000, he was elected Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences.

In June 1973, he was invited to join The World Council of Churches' Consultation on Genetics and Quality of Life, chaired by Dr Robert Edwards, and more than 30 years later Konotey-Ahulu is still in contact with Bob Edwards through the Ethics Committee of the Cromwell Hospital, London, where Konotey-Ahulu was Consultant Physician from 1983 to July 2005. To present the African viewpoint in an international symposium on "The Human Genome Diversity Project", published by Politics and The Life Sciences (PLS), Lake Superior State University, USA, in September 1999 he titled his paper "The Human Genome Diversity Project: Cogitations of an African Native" (pages 317–322), where he traced the sickle-cell gene in his ancestry, with patients' names, generation by generation back to AD 1670, aided by the fact that the hereditary rheumatic syndrome was known to African tribes by specific onomatopoeic names (hemkom, chwechweechwe, nwiiwii, ahotutuo, nuidudui) for centuries before it was first described in the US in 1910. [1]

This exercise in genetic genealogy, rare in medical archives, helped Konotey-Ahulu develop a discipline of genetic epidemiology to show how polygamy in his forebears produced gene combinations with variations in phenotypic expression of the hereditary syndrome. His invention of the Male Procreative Superiority Index (MPSI), which shed new light on African anthropogenetics, is the result of this personalised genetic epidemiology.

In October 2002, the South African Medical Research Council, with Georgetown University, Washington DC, invited him to take part in an international conference on "Developing Sustainable Health Care Delivery Systems in Africa for the New Millennium". He spoke on two topics: "An African Physician's Personal Analysis of his Continent's Sustainable Health Care Delivery Prognosis for the New Millennium", and "Setting Priorities and Overcoming Obstacles: AIDS in Africa – Obstacles to Health Care Delivery".

Linguistics

Konotey-Ahulu has developed a method for writing African tonal languages, explained in a book titled Mother Tongue – Introducing The Tadka Phonation Technique For Speaking An African Tonal Language: Krobo/Dangme-Ga of South-East Ghana (82 pages – ISBN   0-9515442-4-1. T-A'D Co Watford, UK, 2001). The book aims to help educate some Africans to read their own language more easily and quickly than has hitherto been possible. It will also explain the basic principles of Public Health information about genetic and acquired disease to those who do not read English, and promises to be a great tool in adult education. If proved helpful, the book would be translated into French and Portuguese.

Christianity

Professor Konotey-Ahulu is a Christian, plays the piano, and has written a Millennium Hymn of seven verses, complete with melody, entitled "Time Was Created", [9] which the University of Cape Coast Choir sang after his inaugural address. He is a staunch biblical creationist, and has ably defended Christianity in the Ghanaian Times and the British Medical Journal . His faith also means that he is strongly anti-abortion, and has denounced genetic testing for sickle-cell disease with a view to aborting babies with the disease. Most recently, he has answered the latest antitheistic arguments from Richard Dawkins and the racist arguments from James Watson. [10] [11]

Career and accomplishments

The value of Professor Konotey-Ahulu's work as a global authority on sickle-cell disease, including some discoveries in Clinical Medicine, has been widely recognized by medical practitioners and specialists around the world, leading to his inclusion in a survey of "The 100 Greatest Africans of All Time". He has produced more than 200 publications, a number of which have become the definitive studies in their field. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]

Professor Konotey-Ahulu is the first person known to have traced hereditary disease in his forebears, generation by generation, with all names, right back to 1670 AD. [15] [22] He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation Award for outstanding research in Sickle Cell Anaemia, the Guinness Award for Scientific Achievement in the Commonwealth, and the Gold Medal of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding contribution to knowledge in the Medical Sciences by a Ghanaian. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng</span> Ghanaian physician and cardiothoracic surgeon

Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng is a Ghanaian physician and cardiothoracic surgeon who established the National Cardiothoracic Center in Accra, Ghana and the Ghana Red Cross Society. He is also the president of the Ghana Heart Foundation and was the chief executive officer of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital</span> Hospital in Greater Accra Region, Ghana

Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) is a public teaching hospital located in the Ablekuma South District in the Accra Metropolitan District of the Greater Accra Region, Ghana. It is the only public tertiary hospital in the southern part of the country. It is a teaching hospital affiliated with the medical school of the University of Ghana. Three centres of excellence, the National Cardiothoracic Centre, the National Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the Radiotherapy Centres are all part of it. In 2019, the hospital gained a license from the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HeFRA), after meeting the requirement.

James Edward Bowman Jr. was an American physician and specialist in pathology, hematology, and genetics. He was a professor of pathology and genetics at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago. He published more than ninety works across the fields of human genetics; population genetics; and ethical, legal and public policy issues in human genetics. He received many awards, including the Chicago African American History Makers Award and recognition from the Hastings Center and Stanford’s Kaiser Family Foundation, and Howard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Odamtten Easmon</span> Ghanaian surgeon and academic (1913–1994)

Charles Odamtten Easmon or C. O. Easmon, popularly known as Charlie Easmon, was a medical doctor and academic who became the first Ghanaian to formally qualify as a surgeon specialist and the first Dean of the University of Ghana Medical School. Easmon performed the first successful open-heart surgery in Ghana in 1964, and modern scholars credit him as the "Father of Cardiac Surgery in West Africa". Easmon was of Sierra Leone Creole, Ga-Dangme, African-American, Danish, and Irish ancestry and a member of the distinguished Easmon family, a Sierra Leone Creole medical dynasty of African-American descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Makani</span> Tanzanian medical researcher

Julie Makani is a Tanzanian medical researcher. From 2014 she is Wellcome Trust Research Fellow and Associate Professor in the Department of Haematology and Blood Transfusion at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS). Also a visiting fellow and consultant to the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, she is based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In 2011, she received the Royal Society Pfizer Award for her work with sickle cell disease.

Adeyinka Gladys Falusi, FAS NPOM, is a Nigerian Professor of haematology and former Director of the Institute for Advanced Medical Research and Training, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan.

The University of Ghana Medical School also UGMS is the medical school of Ghana's first public research institution, the University of Ghana. It is currently located at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra. The medical school was first planned in 1919, but took its first students in 1962.

Stuart Holland Orkin is an American physician, stem cell biologist and researcher in pediatric hematology-oncology. He is the David G. Nathan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Orkin's research has focused on the genetic basis of blood disorders. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Ebenezer Laing, was a Ghanaian botanist and geneticist who served as the Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon. He was a professor at the University of Ghana, Legon, and later an emeritus professor. Laing, together with his university and faculty colleague, George C. Clerk (1931–2019), was one of the first Ghanaian academics to specialise in botany as a scientific discipline and contributed significantly to the growth of the field in Ghana. He was also a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, inducted in 1965. In 1985, he was elected an inaugural Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences.

Silas Rofino Amu Dodu, was a Ghanaian physician and academic. He was a professor of medicine, the second Dean at the University of Ghana Medical School and a pioneer cardiologist in Ghana. He and others have been described as pioneers of the medical profession in Ghana.

James Franklin Osman Adewale Ishola Mustaffah, was a Ghanaian academic and neurosurgeon. He is credited for introducing neurosurgery in Ghana. Mustaffah was one of the earliest African neurosurgeons practising in Sub-Saharan Africa, he was the first African member of the International Society of Surgeons. He was a member of the African Association of Neurological Science and a faculty member of the University of Ghana Medical School.

Ian Frederick Adukwei Hesse, is a Ghanaian academic, physician and a Presbyterian minister. He was on the faculty at the Department of Physiology at the University of Ghana Medical School, a consultant physician as well as a co-founder and the Vice President of Accra College of Medicine. He was formerly assistant secretary and later vice-president of the Ghana Medical Association. He is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. He is involved in prison reform and ministry in Ghana.

Professor Emmanuel Quaye Archampong, was a Ghanaian surgeon and academic. He was an emeritus professor of the College of Health Sciences University of Ghana Medical School, University of Ghana, Legon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swee Lay Thein</span> Malaysian haematologist

Swee Lay Thein is a Malaysian haematologist and physician-scientist who is Senior Investigator at the National Institutes of Health. She works on the pathophysiology of haemoglobin disorders including sickle cell disease and thalassemia.

Hermann Lehmann was a German-born British physician and biochemist known for his works on the chemistry and diversity of hemoglobin. Describing about 75 different hemoglobin, he discovered the most number of hemoglobin types than anyone else. He is regarded as one of the founders of molecular anthropology.

Yao Tettey is a Ghanaian academic and physician. He is a professor of Pathology at the University of Ghana, and the provost of the university's College of Health Sciences. He also works as a Consultant Pathologist at the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Ghana College of Physicians, and the West African College of Physicians, of which he served as president from 2013 to 2014.

Ambroise Wonkam is a Cameroonian medical doctor and professor of medical genetics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His research is in sickle cell disease, the genetics of congenital hearing impairment, and ethics in human genetics. He is the current president of the African Society of Human Genetics.

Isaac Odame is a Ghanaian academic and physician who specialises in sickle cell disease. He is a professor of Hematology and Oncology at the Paediatrics department of the University of Toronto. He holds the Alexandra Yeo Chair in Hematology at the University of Toronto. He is the Director of the Hematology Division of the university's Department of Medicine. He is a staff physician of The Hospital for Sick Children, where he serves as the medical director of the Global Sickle Cell Disease Network located at the Centre for Global Child Health. He is a founder of the Global Sickle Cell Disease Network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kwaku Ohene-Frempong</span> Ghanaian physician (1946–2022)

Kwaku Ohene-Frempong was a Ghanaian pediatric hematologist-oncologist and an expert in sickle cell disease (SCD). Ohene-Frempong grew up in Ghana and was a standout athlete in track-and-field, later competing for Yale University as well as Ghana at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games. He continued his medical training in the United States, where he completed medical school, pediatrics residency and a pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship. With a professional interest in SCD, Ohene-Frempong was a physician and involved in public health initiatives at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana, and later the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in Pennsylvania. He continued professional relationships with Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana where he later became a full-time physician after retiring from CHOP. In Ghana, he established public health initiatives for SCD screening in newborns, as well as an SCD clinic for patients with the disease.

References

  1. 1 2 "GHAFES hosts Prof. Felix Konotey-Ahulu", GHAFESVOICE, 4th Quarter, October–December 2013.
  2. 1 2 "Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu, FGA MD(Lond), DSc(UCC), FRCP(Glasg), FRCP (Lond), FWACP DTMH(L'pool)", Creation Ministries International.
  3. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, F. I. D., "The Teenager with Sickle Cell Disease: Professor F.I.D Konotey-Ahulu (the Dr Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished Professor in Human Genetics, University of Cape Coast, Ghana), Continues His Series on Sickle Cell Disease. (Medical Themes)", New African , June 2001.
  4. ↑ Maureen Abotsi, "Dr. Felix ID Konotey-Ahulu" Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine , Ghana Nation, 17 September 2013.
  5. ↑ "Personality Profile – Prof. Konotey-Ahulu", Sickle Life.
  6. 1 2 "Felix I D Konotey-Ahulu FGA" (CV).
  7. ↑ "Prof. Felix Konotey-Ahulu Consultant & Sickle Cell Specialist", ReConnect Africa.
  8. ↑ "DR FELIX I D KONOTEY-AHULU CURRICULUM VITAE", September 2002.
  9. ↑ "MILLENNIUM HYMN Time Was Created", YouTube.
  10. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, Felix (23 September 2006), "Response to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion interview", Creation Ministries International.
  11. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, Felix I D, "Tonal Languages, Genetics, Human Race and James Watson's Clanger", Creation Ministries International.
  12. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, Felix I. D. (1974). "The Sickle Cell Diseases – Clinical Manifestations Including the 'Sickle Crisis'". JAMA Internal Medicine. 133 (4): 611–9. doi:10.1001/archinte.133.4.611. PMID   4818434.
  13. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, Felix ID (2014). "Management of sickle cell disease in the community". BMJ. 348: g1765. doi:10.1136/bmj.g1765. PMC   5612384 . PMID   24613806.
  14. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, F. I. (1971). "Malaria and sickle-cell disease". British Medical Journal. 2 (5763): 710–711. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.5763.710-d. PMC   1796251 . PMID   5556078.
  15. 1 2 "Publications: Articles" at sicklecell.md.
  16. ↑ Felix I.D. Konotey-Ahulu, The Sickle Cell Disease Patient, Macmillan Education, 1991, ISBN   978-0333392393.
  17. ↑ "Kidney International" . Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  18. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, F. I. D. (1973) Sickle Cell Disease: The Case for Family Planning, Astab Books (Amazon).
  19. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, F.I.D. (January 1982). "Ethics of Amniocentesis and Selective Abortion for Sickle Cell Disease". The Lancet . 1 (8262): 38–39. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(82)92572-7. PMID   6119424. S2CID   2596458.
  20. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, Felix ID (2005). "Sickle-cell disease and the patient". The Lancet. 365 (9457): 382–383. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)17818-0 . PMID   15680445. S2CID   35123784.
  21. ↑ Konotey-Ahulu, Felix D (2005), "Antioxidants for children with kwashiorkor", BMJ; 330 doi : 10.1136/bmj.330.7500.1095
  22. ↑ http://www.konotery-ahulu.com/images/generation.jpg [ permanent dead link ]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.