The tiny town of Rolette, ND, (population 994) is distant in miles and mindset from New York City, where Lyle Best received his undergraduate science degree while at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. But after serving Rolette's largely Chippewa population in the following decades as a family practitioner, Best got to thinking about how he might help kindle and nurture a love of science among local young people.
Fueled by a personal interest in medical genetics, he worked with Turtle Mountain Community College in nearby Belcourt, helping it secure its first-ever National Institutes of Health clinical research grant. The grant will focus on Native American genetics and how it might factor in preeclampsia.
The $150,000 initiative may end up providing important clues to preeclampsia and prenatal screening for the disorder in this population. "Our main focus is really on engaging and training students at the college in the very idea ...