By Elizabeth Osayande

For Don-Pedro Ume, graduating at the top of his undergraduate class was not enough; the Nigerian pharmacist’s personal experience with malaria and hospital working experience have propelled him towards a renewed purpose at Yale University, United States, where he researches potential new drug candidates for treating malaria.

At the Yale Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases Research Day Symposium on April 28, 2025, Ume gave a poster presentation of the research he has been working on for several months at the Bei Lab. He currently leverages his skills and expertise in molecular genetics, bioinformatics, and statistical analysis, working under the supervision of Prof. Amy Bei, a visionary malaria researcher and professor at the Yale School of Public Health, YSPH.

His passion for antimicrobial resistance, AMR research can be traced back to his childhood years. In a recent conversation, he shared that growing up, he had to be placed on multiple treatment regimens to manage his several skin diseases and malaria cases. He would later learn in pharmacy school that this could have been caused by antimicrobial resistance, AMR to certain medications.

He noted, “As a pharmacy undergraduate at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, I learnt about various mechanisms that drive antimicrobial resistance, such as enzymatic degradation of drugs and modification of antimicrobial targets via genetic mutations. Reflecting on my childhood experiences, I was inspired to conduct antimicrobial susceptibility testing, AST research on presumptive extended-spectrum beta-lactamase, ESBL-producing uropathogens, an enzyme that is often associated with multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. This experience laid the foundation for my research in AMR.”

Ume also shared that while working in public and private hospitals in Nigeria—including University College Hospital, Ibadan, the country’s premier teaching hospital—he could not help but notice the alarmingly high rates of antimicrobial resistance to medications for preventable diseases like malaria and typhoid.

Building on these diverse experiences, as a Master of Public Health, MPH student at YSPH, he currently explores how resistance-associated genetic mutations in certain Plasmodium genes influence pre-clinical response to a new class of antimalarial compounds from the kalihinol class. The research is an extension of previous research published in the Science journal in 2024, which the Bei Lab contributed to. Following the poster presentation in April, Don-Pedro stated that his research is still ongoing, and the findings will be published once the results of the phenotypic drug assays are complete.

The pharmacist’s decision to research novel antimalarial compounds can be tied to several reasons.

According to the public health scholar, “Malaria is a disease I have had a personal encounter with more times than I can count. This globally devastating disease is responsible for almost 600,000 deaths yearly, its vaccines have limited protective efficacy, and more importantly, there have been records of partial resistance to artemisinin (the first line of treatment) in Africa and the Greater Mekong subregion.”

He emphasised, “Just as resistance developed to chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine decades ago, the same could happen for artemisinin. This could have far-reaching consequences globally, including the United States, which records an annual 2,000 malaria cases associated with travel to malaria-endemic regions, like sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. To prevent such a disaster from happening, it is crucial to intensify efforts aimed at discovering new classes of antimalarial drug candidates that target pathways not explored by the current antimalarial therapies.”

Ume is equally focused on reducing health disparities for populations that are disproportionately impacted by AMR. In an excerpt from the Yale Public Health Magazine, Science & Society: Fall/Winter 2024, he shared the following insights on the future of public health: “I envision the future of public health as one where health equity is prioritised. I think it is important to understand that not everyone is privileged to access health care, particularly those populations that are disproportionately affected by chronic and infectious diseases. As public health experts, we must champion policies that ensure people are met where they are.”

As the Nigerian pharmacist prepares to earn his MPH degree, he is looking forward to starting his Master of Business Administration, MBA programme at the Yale School of Management, SOM, where he plans to acquire the leadership and management skills necessary for implementing inclusive and culturally relevant AMR surveillance initiatives and policies. As an incoming Student Research Fellow at the Solomon Centre for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School, he is looking to bridge his scientific expertise with policy research and advocacy aimed at informing intensified AMR surveillance among minority groups in the US, as well as rural communities across Africa.