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Myself and host Professor Heinrich Taegtmeyer |
In mid-July 2005, after a marathon journey from Cape Town, South Africa, I arrived in a sweltering Houston, TX with my wife and three children. After settling into our lovely apartment (only minutes away from the Medical Center at the University of Texas), we quickly accustomed ourselves to a fairly average kind of Texan lifestyle. The children adjusted remarkably well at the nearby-located school, striking up new friendships and excelling in their work.
I also began my planned studies with Professor Heinrich Taegtmeyer, a world leader in cardiac metabolism based at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School. During the six months I spent there, we tackled a series of experiments designed to unravel the functional role of a key enzyme that regulates cardiac fat metabolism. Activation of this enzyme results in increased fat metabolism, which may hold potential benefits for various cardiac disease states since it prevents fat build up in heart tissues.
I was fortunate to test my hypothesis using a transgenic mouse model that has been engineered to lack our enzyme of interest—this work was done as part of a collaborative study with Professor Salih Wakil’s laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Work from this study progressed extremely well and we are planning to submit a manuscript summarizing our findings.
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Myself and members of the Taegtmeyer lab ( I am second to the right & Prof Taegtmeyer is on the far right) |
Furthermore, through my interactions with other colleagues in the Taegtmeyer laboratory, I am also a co-author of a second manuscript published earlier this year. Therefore, from an academic perspective my stay was most productive in terms of research outputs. Also, it provided me with an opportunity to extensively network with other scientists at the Texas Medical Center and within the United States. For example, I was invited to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio to present some aspects of my research and also to build collaborations with their department of physiology and biophysics. Moreover, I also had the opportunity to visit the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC, further strengthening existing collaborations.
In terms of the larger scheme of things, two events stand out during my stay in Houston. First, my family had to deal with the looming onslaught of Hurricane Rita. We were literally staring down the barrel of a gun. The collective anxiety leading up to actual landfall was a haunting experience. We will never forget the long queues to buy rapidly depleting stocks of water, gasoline, flashlights, charcoal, etc. Then we had the major decision whether to evacuate Houston or not. In the end, after much deliberation, we decided to stay, and the night of the expected landfall my family huddled together on mattresses spread out in the passage (far removed from any windows). I will also not forget the wonderful support from Council of International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) staff members Michelle Grant and Julia Beaver during these stressful times. Thankfully, Houston was spared the major brunt of Rita, but our hearts went out to those who weren’t so fortunate.
The second highlight of our stay was the opportunity to travel throughout the United States. We managed to visit the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, Chicago, Niagara Falls, New York City, Washington, DC and Orlando. We experienced both the magnificent natural beauty of the country—the stunning vistas of the Grand Canyon and the powerful surges of Niagara will remain locked in my memory cells forever. On the other hand, my children lived out every fantasy in Disney World, whilst my wife and I were revitalized by the buzz of New York City, the greatest city in the world.
During our stay we also learned that American people are generally friendly and helpful, and always ready to start a conversation or lend a hand. In summary, I have had the privilege and honor of being a Fulbright Visiting Scholar. It really opens doors for you, academically and in the school of life itself. I am looking forward to my return to South Africa in order to share newly acquired techniques and expertise as well as my U.S. experiences with my colleagues. I wish to thank the U.S. Department of State and the CIES for creating this wonderful opportunity, and I look forward to having a similar experience in the United States in the near future.
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"International education
exchange is the most significant current project
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mankind to the point, we would hope, that
nations can learn to live in peace"
--J. William Fulbright |
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