Nzinga Mack grew up with anatomy and physiology textbooks lying around the house. She had older siblings working in medicine. From an early age, she thumbed through the pages, fascinated.
She thought she would become a doctor too, but she ultimately fell in love with research.
“I’m interested in finding out the answers to pertinent questions,” she says. “I’m interested in figuring out how biological systems work. And that’s what really got me going,”
Now Mack is completing a Ph.D. program in Florida A&M University’s College of Pharmacy and
Pharmaceutical Sciences. In the spring, she’ll start a postdoctoral fellowship sponsored by the National Institute of Health at Johns Hopkins University, called Academic Success via Postdoctoral Independence in Research and Education (ASPIRE).
Mack’s research focuses on a particular gene, lactate dehydrogenase, which plays a role in a variety of cancers. It produces lactic acid, which degrades tissue around the cancer making it easier for cancer to spread. It also changes proteins on the outside of the cell, making it harder for the body to recognize and kill the cancer cells. Mack’s work involves gene editing to “knock down” the expression of the gene producing the lactic acid.
The project was born out of an academic interest but also inspired by family members who struggled with cancer. She’s been “personally touched” by what she studies, she says.
