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Science’s Hispanic Heritage
Medicinal Biochemist Rodriguez Underscores Latino Contributions to Health, Medicine |
| By Valerie Lambros |
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Dr. Eloy Rodriguez at Lister Hill Auditorium |
Dr. Eloy Rodriguez knows a thing or two about making one’s way in the world. As a guest lecturer at NIH’s observance of Hispanic Heritage Month, he told how his love of science and tremendous family support took him from an impoverished upbringing to the groundbreaking science he is conducting today.
Rodriguez grew up in a large family that included some 67 first cousins, a family tree so large “we had enough for two football
teams with cheerleaders and people in the stands throwing beer cans at us,” he told the Lister Hill Auditorium audience.
Born and reared in one of the poorest regions
of south Texas, in an area he calls “Chicano land,” Rodriguez grew up not bilingual,
as one might suspect, but instead what he calls trilingual—knowing English, Spanish and the blend known as Spanglish. His family
can trace its American roots back to the 1600s, another fact many people might not think upon meeting him, he says.
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‘No Cannot-Dos’
Pacific Island Students Find that Labs And Lab Coats Suit Them |
| By Amy F. Reiter |
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Through time zones, cultures and continents, Salefu Tuvalu left her native American Samoa to come to NIH to make her mark in the world of science.
This summer, under a National
Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
program designed to attract underrepresented
minorities to the medical sciences, the Idaho University student found that mark in
NIDDK’s Phoenix branch, where she worked to identify genetic explanations for why an American
Indian tribe in Arizona has higher rates of obesity and diabetes than many other groups.
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