With the world fixating on COVID-19, little thought was given to public health threats in Nigeria such as Lassa Fever and the Monkeypox virus.
Always one to see the opportunity in a problem, American University of Nigeria (AUN) Biomedical Science major, Emmanuel Funsho Alakunle set out to highlight a dangerous disease which kills up to a tenth of people who contract it. The final year Natural & Environmental Science student-authored an ingenious paper on the signaling pathway of the Monkeypox virus in Nigeria.
“There has been a spike in Monkeypox cases since 2018; unfortunately, everyone’s attention and resources were focused on COVID-19. We were not monitoring Monkeypox. That was very dangerous” Emmanuel said
According to the World Health Organization, Monkeypox is a viral disease that can be transferred by wild animals to humans and in some cases transmitted from human to human. Incidental human infections have been occurring sporadically in the rain forests of Central and West Africa. It belongs to the Orthopoxvirus family, the same group of viruses as smallpox.
Emmanuel’s peer-reviewed article on the infection biology, epidemiology, and evolution of the Monkeypox virus in Nigeria was a collaborative effort with Professor Malachy Ifeanyi Okeke, UiT-The Arctic University of Norway, and CIRCB; a laboratory in Cameroon. The paper highlights the human, cellular, and viral factors that modulate the virus transmission dynamics, infection, and its maintenance in nature.
“The process began with my mentor and supervisor Dr. Malachy Okeke. I approached him to talk about my idea. I studied about 625 articles to get a grasp of current literature on the virus.” Said Emmanuel.
Over the course of their work together, the connection between student and Faculty was greatly transformed.
“My relationship with Dr. Malachy began just as student and Instructor. From attending his classes, I became greatly inspired by him. In class, he encouraged us and exposed us to the world of research. I no longer see him just as an instructor but also a mentor”
The authors investigated the evolutionary development of the monkeypox virus using a phylogenetic tree (branching diagrams to study genetic material) of the Monkeypox virus in Nigeria. They found that the Monkeypox Virus from the 2017 outbreak in Nigeria descended from a single ancestor with the Monkeypox virus exported to Israel from Nigeria but does not share the most recent common ancestor with the virus from earlier outbreaks in Nigeria in 1971 and 1978.
“Not many people studied the signaling pathway of the virus, the way the virus interacts with other cells in the body, and the mechanism to blend in the body of the host, etc.” Said, Emmanuel.
This motivated the researchers to study the Monkeypox virus using cultures of the isolated microorganism. Their paper is published in the Journal Viruses (2019 five year JCR Impact Factor: 4.001, 2019 Scimago Journal Ranking: Q1 for Virology; Q1 for Infectious Diseases).
Emmanuel Alakunle is the first author of the paper and Natural & Environmental Science (NES) Associate Professor of Biology, Prof Malachy Ifeanyi Okeke is the Senior/Corresponding author of the paper. Professor Okeke was full of praise for Emmanuel at his exemplary achievement at such an early stage in his life.
“Special commendation must go to Emmanuel Alakunle for being a first author to an outstanding paper in a very high impact journal while still an undergraduate at AUN. This epitomizes the excellent quality of scholarship here at AUN and our department of Natural and Environmental Sciences!”
Professor Malachy has played a pivotal role in Emmanuel’s development as a scholar. Yet Emmanuel also found an eager community of helpers at the AUN campus.
“ When I came to AUN, I was already a bookworm. I met some seniors like Laju Okorodudu, Chukwuma, and others who really put me through how to study for articles. AUN has helped improve my research skills. Now it’s no longer about just reading but also knowing how to apply what I have studied in real-life situations, taking it outside class”
Indeed knowledge gained in the classroom can be even more impactful when applied to a real-life laboratory. This study is an outcome of the collaborative research on virus genomics and evolution between the American University of Nigeria, UIT-The Arctic University of Norway (Prof Ugo Moens), and CIRCB Yaounde Messa, Cameroon (Prof Godwin Nchinda).
To read the full-length paper, click on the link below:
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/12/11/1257
By Office of Communications