Amogh Rao is an undergraduate student at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and a lab assistant in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology and Ecology Lab (IDEEL) at the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases. This past summer, he visited Kenya to research malaria resistance and the threat of treatment efficacy.
How did you become interested in global health?
I’m currently an undergraduate student at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and a lab assistant in the Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Ecology Lab (IDEEL). I began working with IDEEL early in my sophomore year by connecting with Dr. Jonathan Juliano. He was gracious enough to onboard me with a project that I have been working on for the past year.
Can you share your work and the inspiration behind it?
I recently designed a study called Integrating Malaria Molecular Epidemiology into Routine Surveillance in Kenya. Malaria resistance has been a growing concern across Africa, and this has caused a threat to treatment efficacy and malaria elimination goals. In this study, I am conducting research to understand malaria resistance in Kenya. Over the summer, we collected 549 regional samples from Kenya, finding several gene mutations linked to artemisinin resistance. Several of these mutations were already found in 31 different samples.
My inspiration for this study came from an incredible opportunity to travel to Kilifi this summer, a rural coastal town in Kenya. During this time, I assisted in establishing malaria molecular surveillance throughout the country. I also helped train technicians in running two assays, PfSMARRTer and sWGA, to understand regional malaria resistance. This opportunity came about through an Accelerated Research Summer I received from the Undergraduate Office of Research when I entered Carolina.
What challenges did you encounter, and how did you troubleshoot them?
Global health has always been a passion of mine, and having the opportunity to go abroad and see my research in action and learn what it means to be a global health researcher was both exciting and gratifying. It only reaffirmed and further invigorated my desire to be a researcher in this space after seeing how the work directly influences millions of lives around the world.
I also learned about the ups and downs of the research process. In order to be efficient with our research process, we had a close schedule to follow, but on day four at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), our preliminary tests prompted concerns for contamination. My lab partner and I thought we would have to redo the entire initial steps of our assay, but this was not possible because of our tight schedules. Instead, we began to troubleshoot the process in an attempt to understand the specific step where contamination could have occurred. Although the troubleshooting process took an extra day, we were able to confidently move forward after identifying that what we observed was not contamination, but rather a dimerization of the primers we used. This showed me that the research process is rarely linear, and flexibility, persistence, and critical thinking are just as important as technical skills.
How did your experience in Kenya shape your understanding of the human impact behind malaria research?
I enjoyed being able to work alongside brilliant minds at KEMRI. I was pleased and honored by the genuine curiosity everyone had about our project and the personal connection many had to malaria. To the researchers in KEMRI, malaria wasn’t just a distant subject of study, but a disease that had directly affected them or their families. I could see how deeply invested they were in advancing research that could make a tangible difference for the communities surrounding Kilifi.
My colleagues in Kenya were kind and welcoming, ensuring I had the best time while I was there. In this experience, I learned that global health is so much more than just research. During our evenings and weekends in Kilifi, we socialized with the local team, and these opportunities enriched our collaboration. From sailing on a sunset dhow, a traditional wooden sailing boat used for sunset cruises, with dinner and traditional music, to a weekend safari getaway, we bonded over these experiences and interests that created a strong, genuine connection, which would ultimately empower our success in the lab.