Prophet Owuor                 Photo: Courtesy

 

Prophet Dr Edward David Owuor, as one title suggests is very learned. He earned his first degree from Makerere University, his second at University of Nairobi, and his masters degree in Genetics (Inheritance) at Ben Gurion, Israel before proceeding for his PhD in Molecular Genetics at University of Haifa (also in Israel).

He also holds a degree from the University of Giessen’s Institute for Genetics (Germany). Upon the completion of his Doctorate from the University of Haifa on Mt Carmel in Israel, He was immediately offered appointment by two leading institutions in Medicine in the US.

The man born in 1966 in Yimbo, Siaya, joined the Centre for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Illinois in Chicago as a Post-Doctoral Fellow where he researched and taught in the college of Pharmacy, and specifically the Department of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics. He was a specialist of a branch of Drug Metabolism known as Signal Transduction. He majored in Signal Transduction by cancer chemotherapeutic drugs.

 

Deeply engaged into Drug Design

It was during that time that he also lectured and instructed post-graduate and doctorate students on Onco-Protein Networks (Mitogen activated protein Kinases). At that centre for pharmaceutical biotechnology Prophet Owuor did extensive Research on signaling Bi-cancer Chemotherapeutic drugs in different kinds of human cancers, such as cervical carcinoma, breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, and other Ardinocarcinoma. In that research, Prophet Owuor was involved with a team that deeply engaged into Drug Design and Drug Discovery.

The work that arose from his appointment at the Centre for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, was extensively published in world class peer review scientific journals of cancer such as  Journal for Biological Chemistry (JBC), Journal for Pharmaceutical Research, and Carcinogenesis among others.

 

Effects of environmental insults

After that, Prophet Owuor was further appointed to the department of pharmaceutics at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at the State University of New Jersey.

At the Department of Pharmaceutics in New Jersey, Owuor furthered his work by looking at not only the cancer chemotherapy, but also got involved in cancer chemo prevention, and that is when he studied the chemicals PEITC and different Anti Oxidants and their roles as gene-switches, that help the human body to fight cancer.

 It is then thatProphet Owuor was also interested in the effects of environmental insults such as Benzene, Mercury, cigarette smoke, and their roles including the processes of Tumorigenesis and Carcinogenesis in the human body. Prophet Owuor became the Member of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), and presented his research work in extensive international meetings including various pharmaceutical companies that incited him to give a talk of his novel work in cancer research for drug design and discovery.

Prophet Owuor was then hired by the Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ), in the Department of Surgery, and the Division of Surgical Oncology, within the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey (UMDNJ).

He was appointed as a Research Teaching Specialist III (RTSIII), a role that involved in training several surgeons who were involved in Oncology, to understand the processes that lead to Tumour Angiogenisis, which is the process by which Cancer grow in the human body and evade medication, thereby leading to the death of patients.

 

The peak of his career

Prophet Owuor was involved in examining the two gene-switches that control Cancer Angiogenesis, one of them being Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor a (VEGFa) and Vascular Endothelial growth Factor b (VEGFb). 

His work in Cancer prevention was covered by the New Jersey Star Ledger and New Jersey Channel 12 News. It was at the peak of his career as a Research Teaching Specialist at the division of Surgical Oncology, at the cancer Institute of New Jersey, that he was finally appointed into the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI), of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the Department of Forensic Toxicology and Aircraft Accidents.

 

The field of Aerospace medicine

At the Department of Forensic Toxicology and Aircraft Accidents, Prophet Owuor was charged with examining the human  factors that affect the operation of an aircraft among Civil Aviators (Airline pilots).

He was interested in examining the effect of alcohol, drug abuse and disease among pilots in causing aircraft crashes and fatalities. That work was centred under the office of Aerospace Medicine and led to him publish several significant works in the novel field of Aerospace medicine.Prophet Owuor was part of the team that received Recertification with Distinction from the College of American Pathologists of North Field Illinois.

Throughout all his career from Israel through to the Civil Aerospace Institute, the Lord God Almighty had been calling His Prophet while the Prophet of the Lord was attempting to run away from the calling of Jehovah with relentless visitation in dreams, vision and by voice, the Lord did not stop calling his Prophet as he run away to establish in the lucrative career. Until finally one day he gave in to the calling of the Lord.