U.S-Based Nigerian Bags Mac Arthur Fellowship

Daily Champion (Lagos)

NEWS

September 23, 2005

Posted to the web September 23, 2005

By Okey Nwankwo

Lagos

A NIGERIAN resident in the United States, Professor Olufunmilayo Olopade has been selected as one of the 2005 MacArthur Fellows.

The John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation yesterday named 25 new MacArthur Fellows for the year with each receiving a $500,000 grant for research over the next five years.

MacArthur Fellows are selected for their creativity, originality and potentials. The foundation, by providing resources without stipulations or reporting requirements, offers the opportunity for fellows to accelerate their current activities or take their work in new directions.

Olopade, a professor of medicine and human genetics started out in 1980 from University of Ibadan.

She served as a medical officer with the Nigerian Navy Hospital and then completed an internship and residency in 1986 at the Cook County Hospital, Chicago.

Between 1987 and 1991, she trained in hematology and oncology as a post doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago and presently is director of the center for clinical cancer genetics at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Professor Olopade is an oncologist who researches on individual and population cancer susceptibility in order to proffer effective clinical practice for treating breast cancer among African and Afro-American women.

As funding director of the centre for clinical cancer genetics at the University of Chicago, she leads the application of her research from the bench to the bedside.

She oversees a coordinated multi-disciplinary, clinical programme that includes oncologists, primary care physicians, genetic counsellors, sociologists amongst others who provides free access to genetic services for local at-risk populations.