Medical Marvels in UA

Mark Drew’s journey to malaria research, and life settling in Upper Arlington

Upper Arlington is home to many inspiring people, and Mark Drew and his family are no exception.

Drew is currently one of the leading researchers in the world on malaria and has shifted much of his attention to teaching, as he recently became the director of graduate education in the Department of Microbial Infection and Immunity at The Ohio State University.

Drew grew up in the Pacific Northwest and attended Seattle Pacific University, a small liberal arts school close to home. He earned his degree in biochemistry before marrying his wife, Joanne. From there, he blazed his own trail into the medical research world.

“I took an alternative track in a way,” Drew says. “Joanne and I got married in college, and then I needed a job. So I started working in a research laboratory in Seattle, which is still actually very famous. And I happened into that. So this is my serendipity.”

Drew worked at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute for three and a half years, where he was able to study tropical medicine, do RNA and DNA sequencing manually, as well as radioactive and pathogen work as a technician.

He then joined a parasitology lab at Oregon Health and Science University and studied the parasite leishmania. There he co-authored several papers and a mentor suggested he pursue graduate school.

“I literally had no idea what graduate school was,” Drew says. “I kind of did because it was a department (at the university). I was really out of touch. I did not have that on my radar.”

He applied to five schools and got into two; he was denied by Stanford University; the University of California San Francisco and Harvard University, but got into Yale University and Johns Hopkins University. He chose the latter.

“I was really fortunate and I have a lot of love for Johns Hopkins; it was a huge experience for me,” he says. “To do my Ph.D. there was an absolute honor. High quality education, great people, you ride the elevator with Nobel laureates on a daily basis.”

Drew was moved by his experience at Johns Hopkins, especially by his professors, and it set him on the path for the rest of his career.

“You have people who are incredibly passionate about teaching,” he says. “Great research, world-class research. But it wasn’t lip service about giving it back. They were passionate about teaching and (have) a rich history of teaching.”

He joined his principal investigator (PI) and mentor, Paul Englund, on a research trip to Africa to study African sleeping sickness. He found that he loved the lab work and was extremely grateful for the hands-on experiences he got in the field.

Drew was inspired to pursue a faculty position because of mentors like Englund and stayed on the academic track.

“I wanted to go back into malaria research, and that parasite that causes malaria is really challenging to work on, it’s really hard,” Drew says. “But of course, as a global burden of disease, it’s one of the biggest problems we have.”

So Drew went to work in St. Louis at one of the top malaria research labs in the world – the others being in the Netherlands and Australia – where his life would change quickly. Fred and Matilda, the Drews’ children, were both born there before Drew finished his postdoctoral work and got a job at OSU. The family moved to Upper Arlington in 2008.

“At the time when I started working with malaria, about two and a half million people died per year. Most all of those (are) children under the age of 5,” he says. “We’ve gotten much, much better at it now. Now it’s more in the neighborhood of maybe 650,000 to 800,000, for a lot of reasons.”

Challenges in Ohio

The Drews lived in a suburb of St. Louis, which he says was much like Upper Arlington. They had gotten used to life on the coast in Seattle and Baltimore, but really enjoyed suburban life in Missouri and Drew was grateful that Ohio State showed a lot of interest in him.

When the Drew family moved, Matilda was only 2 months old and Fred was 2 years old. Fred had been diagnosed with a disease called Diamond-Blackfan anemia, which made his bone marrow unable to make red blood cells.

He had to have blood transfusions every 10 days after being born.

A fundraiser was held in Tremont Center just as Fred was turning 6 years old to help the family pay for him to get a bone marrow transplant in Seattle. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the last of the hardships the Drews would face after their move to Columbus.

“Within the first six months of moving here, Joanne was diagnosed with breast cancer,” Drew says.

Luckily, the family was not going to fight alone.

They had found an Episcopal church in St. Louis that was “a perfect fit for us, spiritually,” Drew says. The history and the function of the Episcopal church in the UA community was a draw for Drew. Community involvement and transparent, proactive leadership were also important. After a few months at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, he knew they were in the right place.

“Saint Mark’s was hugely supportive,” Drew says. “I don’t know what we would have done without that sense of community and support because we don’t have direct family here.”

The church, Ohio State and Upper Arlington were all accommodating and overwhelmingly supportive when the Drew family needed them most. Drew remarks that a “Midwest attitude” of generosity and genuine empathy enabled the family to stay in Ohio rather than return to Seattle.

“Joanne, when she had breast cancer and we just had these two little kids, we nearly had to buy an extra freezer for all the casseroles that got brought over,” Drew says, laughing. “It’s just so Midwest.”

Joanne beat cancer and now works as a clinical research coordinator at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where she spearheaded its recognition of Rare Disease Day in February.

Fred’s bone marrow transplant was successful and he turned 17 this year. He and his sister Matilda, 14, are students at Upper Arlington High School.

This year Drew took the role of food chair for the UA Crew, which Matilda is participating in as a rising sophomore. See page 24 for his smoke master tips and mac and cheese recipe.

Drew remains invested in his students and his work. He believes strongly in the scientific process and is grateful for the medical research that is saving lives every year, including Joanne’s.

“Forty years of basic science went into Herceptin (the antibody that targeted Joanne’s cancer cells),” Drew says. “That appreciation and funding of that basic research, that was instrumental in saving my wife’s life. The basic research we’re doing right now, by the same token, will be inserted into health care five, 10, 40 years from now.”

Tyler Kirkendall is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@ cityscenemediagroup.com.