Mahmud Ali Umar

I hail from Kano State, Northern Nigeria. I graduated from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, with a BSc and MSc in Zoology, specializing in Parasitology, and am currently a PhD candidate doing research on snails as intermediate hosts of urogenital schistosomiasis at the same institution under the supervision of Professors IS Ndams and SA Luka. I conducted several studies on schistosomiasis, malaria, sexually transmitted infections and other infectious diseases of poverty. I have presented many research papers at conferences and published articles in peer-reviewed journals. I was part of the research collaboration that detected genomic hybridization between human Schistosoma haematobium and livestock S. bovis in Nigeria in 2019, which may imply changes in the course of drug efficacy and disease pathology in humans.

In order to improve the lives of the rural underserved communities of the Tropics, I delve into research on infectious diseases of poverty, especially the preventable and treatable NTDs. To achieve better research output, I hone my parasitology-based experience with trainings and workshops on molecular biology techniques, implementation research on infectious diseases of poverty (IDP) and academic leadership. My state, Kano, is an agrarian community with many natural and man-made water networks that predispose people to water-based diseases, such as schistosomiasis, which kills silently through chronic complications in the form of infertility, cancer of the bladder and cervix, female genital schistosomiasis that mimics sexually transmitted infections, as well as anemia often in school-aged children with marginal nutrition, thereby affecting their cognition. Sustained disease intervention efforts in low-income communities will reduce disease burden and improve the quality of life of the poor rural masses. This is the ultimate goal of my research; setting my home state, and Nigeria at large free of such diseases.

December 2020