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Mentor. Doctor. Scientist. Immediately after receiving his doctorate degrees from Yale University in 1993, Chinweike Ukomadu, MD, PhD, joined BWH and hasn't left. He served as chief medical resident in the late 1990s, and is a mentor for the BWH STARS Program, a summer research opportunity for underrepresented minority students who have an interest in pursuing academic medical careers.
In 2003, Ukomadu began running his own lab at BWH. He currently splits his time between seeing patients and conducting research that may one day benefit them. BWH Bulletin sat down with Ukomadu to discuss his work and aspirations.
Tell us about your research.
My research focuses on looking at the processes that regulate how the liver develops in the womb, how an adult liver responds to injury and how it responds when things go bad, such as during cancer.
What have you learned so far?
We discovered a molecule that is involved in all three processes. It is a protein called UHRF1, and if you lose this protein, the liver does not develop. This same protein is also needed to regenerate portions of the liver. For instance, if you were to surgically remove part of the liver, and the protein was present, the liver would grow back quickly. But if the protein was absent, the liver would grow back very slowly.
We also saw that in human cancers, tumor tissues contain a lot of this protein. People who have higher levels of this protein have more aggressive tumors, so cancer comes back more quickly.
It's still early, but from what we know so far, the protein is essential for liver development in the womb. For regenerating parts of the liver in adulthood, the protein makes this process work better. And in the area of cancer, too much of this protein is a bad thing.
What do you hope to achieve with your research?
I would love to make discoveries that will help my patients. I have a large clinic with lots of people living with liver disease. I have seen my patients get liver cancer or wait unsuccessfully for transplants.
Could there be better ways to make regenerating liver cells more efficient if your liver is already diseased? Maybe the protein we are studying could be helpful in finding ways to tweak the liver so that even if it is already diseased, we could extend a patient's lifespan until they get a transplant. Also, finding out what is involved in this protein's pathway as it pertains to liver cancer could lead to treatments.
What do you like most about working at BWH?
As far as academic institutions, BWH is unique in being able to foster a great learning environment. You get to learn from people who are willing to give their time to be mentors. I have two small children, and I tell them that the greatest thing about coming to work is that I learn new things every day. Every single encounter is a learning experience.