Alumni Profile
Thomas Wellems; PhD ‘80, MD ‘81
By Adam Kern, MS 3
Noted parasitologist and chief of the NIH Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research Thomas E. Wellems, Ph.D. ‘80, MD ‘81 developed an unusual early interest in what would become his life’s work. Wellems, a co-discoverer of many important attributes of P. falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria, traces his singular curiosity back to his early years.
Thomas Wellems; PhD ‘80, MD ‘81
“As a child I was fascinated by microbiology,” explains Wellems. “I remember reading the novel ‘Microbe Hunters’ by Paul de Kruif and having it capture my imagination.” Within this 1926 book are stylized accounts of the pioneering bacteriological work of such scientists as Leeuwenhoek, Spallanzani, Koch, Pasteur, Reed, and Ehrlich. “After reading about these scientists’ trials, and eventual success, I was very taken with applications of scientific method to the medical arena.” With a hint of nostalgia in his voice, Wellems recalls how these early investigators endured arduous conditions and often faced skeptical critics. “Of course, things are a little bit easier now.”
Yet Dr. Wellems is no stranger to roughing it. A research career spanning twenty-five years has taken him from the halls of the NIH in Bethesda, MD to the wattle and daub huts of the Dogon people in Mali, West Africa. It is there that Wellems, along with a group of Malian and international collaborators, started the Malaria Research and Training Center (MRTC) in the capitol city of Bamako and began field research in outlying towns and villages where cultural barriers are high and the average life expectancy is scarcely 47 years. “In these places, malarial infection lasts a lifetime,” describes Wellems. “Even those who are infected and successfully treated are not granted sterilizing immunity. The ultimate challenge is subsequent re-infection, and our lack of tools to vaccinate an entire country prophylactically.”
Born in Montana in 1951, Wellems received his undergraduate education at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, where he graduated with degrees in physics and chemistry. “I was fortunate to have classes spanning physics to genetics,” says Wellems. “My background made me entirely comfortable switching between the two, and later my goal would become to apply systems biology and mathematical processes to understand infectious disease.” He went on to receive his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Chicago, before training in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. From there Dr. Wellems arrived at the NIH and launched an interdisciplinary career aimed at elucidating the underlying pathophysiology of malaria. “Malaria is a disease of poverty, and to understand it requires not just an understanding of science, but of housing, economy, access to medical treatment and attitudes of cultural acceptance towards malaria.” It is this multifaceted approach that has led Dr. Wellems to such laboratory accomplishments as the discovery of the chloroquine-resistance transporter molecule PfCRT, the description of the var gene family responsible for antigenic variation and immune evasion by P. falciparum parasites and of a molecular mechanism for malaria protection by hemoglobin C.
Dr. Wellems has also sought to address the scourge of malaria in the third-world by forging public-private global health partnerships that provide funding for research. When asked how he would advise current medical students to pursue a career similarly international in scope, he suggests starting early. “The broader perspective you have in medicine the better a physician you’ll be. Public health, political understanding, peace, progress; without these we’re doomed.”
An expressive and articulate, yet modest person, Dr. Wellems almost failed to mention that only five days prior he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. When pressed on this subject Dr. Wellems only reports that, “It’s been a busy week.” What, then, does he recall as the formative experience of his career? “The interdisciplinary environment and the ability to cross academic boundaries at the University of Chicago honed my ability as a scientist. The people I knew there made me grow as a person—and being surrounded by such bright people was the intellectual experience of a lifetime!”
Dr. Wellems will celebrate Reunion Week with the Class of 1977 on June 1.
Third year medical student Adam Kern recently received the NIH-HHMI Research Medical Scholars Fellowship to spend a year conducting mentored research at the NIH laboratories in Betheseda, Maryland.
