UWI TODAY is pleased to share the first in a new series about UWI St Augustine students once featured in our pages that have moved on to excel in their professional or research careers.
Antonio Ramkissoon is no stranger to the pages of UWI TODAY (April 2018 issue). It has been almost ten years since his work with antibiotics was coveredby the paper - in some ways, his life now is very different. But some constants remain. Antonio is now a research associate at Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. He still works with antibiotics, but the nature of his research has changed.
“My work, through graduate school and now postdoctoral research, has always been antibiotic discovery and development,” says Ramkissoon. “Essentially, it began with exploring natural indigenous bacteria from Trinidad, and the ability to produce antibacterial compounds. Then it progressed to isolating and identifying the antibacterials.”
Although the overarching field of study remains the same, he has moved on to the next step in the research: figuring out how to apply what has been discovered to make it work for us. “My research now has evolved from discovery into development of antibiotics...it’s an iterative process of medicinal chemistry coupled with drug development.”
Research into antibiotics is incredibly important for the medical community and the world at large. “Antibiotics are essentially the foundation of modern medicine,” he says. “Without antibiotics, every other medical procedure cannot be done.”
The issue, however, is that the bacteria that affect humans are constantly evolving to work around the antibiotics we have to fight them. “Many pathogenic bacteria are resistant to almost every different type of antibiotic we use in clinics.”
This is something called “multidrug resistance”, and it is a huge issue for the medical field. But what Antonio and others in his field are working on are new chemical classes that target bacteria in completely new ways—ones that they aren’t prepared to defend against. This work started for him in the labs at the St Augustine campus, and he is excited to be able to continue to the next stage of research. From his time at UWI St Augustine’s Department of Life Sciences to spending the last few years at Harvard, there were adjustments that had to be made. For him, one thing was a constant — the science.
“Academically, transitioning from UWI to Harvard was seamless... because the science doesn’t change. Wherever you do the work, it doesn’t change.”
Once the work transition was sorted, he made sure everything else was in order. Of course, that meant finding a place where he could get a home-cooked roti. The only thing he hasn’t figured out is where he can catch the latest cricket matches.
Antonio modestly describes himself as not being “anything special”. But he talks glowingly about colleagues who have come out of The UWI and ended up in institutions across the world.
“A large expatriate portion of Trinidadians who go out into the world to contribute to a global society... they are often heralded as extraordinary. I think Trinis by nature, our mentality, our drive, our personalities, have something special. Like Kes said, ‘once a Trini reach in your fete, is niceness’. I think once a Trini reach in your university, is niceness,” he says with a laugh.
Reflecting on the space he came out of, he says that he would like to see more funding and attention put into basic research (the study of existence without immediate practical applications).
“You may think basic research is nonsense,” he says, “But what universities need to do is invest in basic research that will then eventually pay dividends in blockbuster discoveries.”
He gives an example of a study done on anglerfish pancreas in the 1980s, which led to the breakthrough medication, the GLP-1 agonists that we commonly use today for treating diabetes. “You would think you’re just studying fishes, right?” he says. But the research can go further than you ever imagined—with the right support.
In his own work, Ramkissoon hopes to wrap up the two main projects he is working on at Harvard, and see the antibiotic research to the point where it can begin clinical trials and be safe for human use. Being at the Harvard labs, experiencing the wealth of support and encouragement has been life changing for him. But ultimately, he hopes that he can bring that new experience back to Trinidad someday.
“I would love to become a professor and then use all the skills and techniques that I have gained over the years to start my own antibiotic development lab,” says Ramkissoon.
For him, the phrase “no place like home” isn’t just sentimental. It’s also scientific.
“I still maintain that Trinidad, because of all the different niche environments that we have, like the pitch lake and salt pond, they hold maybe millions or billions of undiscovered compounds that could be used to treat different medical diseases,” he says.
But one thing is true - whichever institution he chooses to go to next, it is sure to be niceness.
