MHIRT Program

Two Texas Wesleyan Students Named 2006 NIH-MHIRT Undergraduate Fellows

Two Texas Wesleyan University students will be studying malaria and other diseases this summer as 2006 NIH-MHIRT Undergraduate Fellows in the Cornell University Biodiversity Undergraduate Research Program. Erica Zuniga will travel to the Dominican Republic while Vanessa Urteaga will spend time in the Amazon of Venezuela. Both students will be part of the Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research Training program (MHIRT), which is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and provides undergraduates, graduates and health professionals from health disparity populations the opportunity to participate in medical research.

The Cornell University Biodiversity program, funded by a MHIRT grant, is led by Eloy Rodriguez, the James A. Perkins Professor at Cornell. He studies biomedicinal plant chemistry and biochemical ecology at sites around the world, including the Amazon, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. The Biodiversity Research Program recruits students from all over the country, but most are from Cornell; few have been from Texas. “It’s not every day that we select two students from the same school in any given year,” Rodriguez notes. “Our students are all top-notch; they work hard and interact well with each other.”

With a focus on treating health disparity populations (African American, Latino, Native American), he studies plants to determine how they could be used to treat a wide range of human diseases, from Type II diabetes to cancer. “We don’t just go into the forest and randomly grind things up,” Rodriguez explains. “We need some direction first.” He seeks direction by studying how animals self-medicate (zoopharmacognosy) and how indigenous people use native plants to treat illness. Over his career, Rodriguez has published 160 academic articles, 2 books, and has trained 17 doctoral students.

With 11 other students in the Amazon, Urteaga will be studying piperaecae, a plant used by indigenous tribes to stun fish so they can be easily harvested for food. The plant may have significance, Rodriguez says, in treating neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s. Zuniga, a junior biochemistry/pre-med major, plans to go on to medical school and pursue a career as either an infectious disease or emergency room M.D./Ph.D. With 13 other students In the Dominican Republic this summer, she’ll study disease epidemiology (malaria, dengue fever, elephantiasis) and plants that may be effective in stimulating insulin production, for treatment of diabetes.

Since the program’s start in 1992, Rodriguez has trained 160 students who have gone on to become doctors, professors and doctoral students. All 160 students completed their degrees in the sciences.

Office of Communications