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| Alian Aguila |
Scientists around the world have trained
their microscopes on one strain of bacteria that claims the lives
of the elderly and cystic fibrosis patients.
Unraveling how that bacteria develops
high levels of resistance against antibiotics is critical to
developing effective drugs
to fight it.
Recent FIU Honors College graduate
Alian Aguila will contribute another piece of the puzzle, the
result of two year’s of
research in FIU’s Department of Biological Sciences. The
research project was recently completed, and Aguila, who finished
his B.S. in Biological Sciences in April, has joined the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) as a cancer research fellow.
The 24-year-old’s honors and accomplishments are impressive
enough— Honors College scholarship recipient and NIH undergraduate
fellowship winner. What’s really remarkable, says his major
professor Kalai Mathee, are the obstacles Aguila overcame along
the way.
Four years ago Aguila and his family
lived in their native Cuba and were combating intense government
harassment. His mother
was under police surveillance and the government took away their
home. So in 1998, Aguila abandoned medical school in Havana and
fled the country with his mother. He has been supporting his
mother throughout his studies, and that has meant working harder
than most, Mathee said.
“That’s the thing that
really got my attention, he is so focused,’’ Mathee
said. “He came here knowing
whether he succeeded or not depended on how hard he worked. He
had to study twice as hard because he had to maintain all A’s
in his classes.”
Early on, Mathee noticed Aguila was
always in the lab after hours. His research and research ethics,
she said, is equal to that
of her graduate students. Under
her guidance, he worked in a team with graduate student Kok-Fai Kong to investigate
the AmpG protein in the bacteria known as Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Their research
maps the structure of the protein, which scientists believe can be targeted for
drug treatment. “This is just a piece of the
puzzle,” Aguila said, “but I believe
it is significant because no one else has done it before,’’
He said he coped with the frustrations
of research by reminding himself that his work can play a role
in extending and improving lives. That and soccer.
The self-professed soccer nut—Brazil is his team—jokes that he
almost failed an exam a couple of years ago because he was so distracted
by the World
Cup. (Actually, he got a B on the test and an A in the class.)
This summer Aguila spent 10 weeks
at the NIH’s National Center for Complementary
and Alternative Medicine in Bethesda, MD, after being selected for an internship
from among 4,000 applicants. While there, Aguila worked on prostate cancer
research. Then, he successfully competed for a two-year cancer
research fellowship that
began Oct. 1.
Next year, Aguila plans to apply
to medical school and is contemplating a specialization in neurology.
For now, he is excited to be at NIH where
he
is working alongside
and learning from some of the world’s top scientists.
“Everything that is going on
in biomedical research is going on there,’ Aguila
said. “It’s very exciting. It’s a good start when
you get out of college.”
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