University of Colorado at Boulder Research Associate Patrick Allen will continue the Chancellor聮s Community Lecture Series on Wednesday, Jan. 17, with his presentation "Scientist Turns Activist: The Black Biomedical Research Movement."
Allen, a scientist in CU-Boulder聮s molecular, cellular and developmental biology department, has spent much of his professional career attempting to define the structure of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He leads a team that was awarded more than $1.2 million by the National Institutes of Health to search for inhibitors to target specific proteins.
Several years ago, Allen began to lighten his research load and concentrate on spearheading a new organization called the Black Biomedical Research Movement to involve more blacks in biomedical research. "This is not about affirmative action, religion, politics or racism," he said. "In its simplest form, this is a science outreach program with the black community being the primary target group."
One of Allen's biggest concerns is that although AIDS in the nation's black community has evolved into a full-blown epidemic, less than 1 percent of U.S. biomedical researchers are black. "This is a disenfranchisement that directly affects health," he said.
In addition to seeing more blacks go into biomedical research, Allen is determined to raise health consciousness in the black community -- goals that go hand-in-hand. Blacks are disproportionately struck by a number of diseases like hypertension, sickle-cell anemia, certain types of cancer and AIDS, and the disparity is caused in part by social, cultural and economic differences and a historical mistrust of the biomedical community, he said.
"The fear and suspicion in the black community of the biomedical establishment is a major public health problem that reaches beyond these diseases," he said. "What we really need is a massive cultural shift to take place for such changes to occur."
The ultimate goal of his movement is to promote black health consciousness at all ages across the country, he said. This includes having many more black people participate in the discovery and development of new drugs to treat diseases, especially those diseases that prey primarily on the black community.
"Ideally, I would like to see black people make the same kind of progress that women have made in participating in research affecting their own health," he said. But it may take 50 years for a change like that to happen."
Allen is raising money for the movement through private foundations, federal health institutes and non-profit medical institutes to place black graduate students into biomedical research positions. He also plans to raise awareness of black health issues through a series of health fairs across the nation.
A Division I All-American wrestler from Springfield College in Massachusetts, Allen received his doctorate in molecular biology from the University of California-Santa Cruz. He then accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at CU-Boulder in 1991 because of its international reputation for research on ribonucleic acid, or RNA, and its link to a number of viruses, including AIDS.
"The overall state of black peoples' health is so poor, I believe we need a grand-scale program not unlike the anti-tobacco or pro-environment campaigns that will result in a new generation of black biomedical researchers to help create a more health-conscious black community," he said.
All Chancellor聮s Community Lecture Series are at 7 p.m. in the Chapel at The Academy building at 970 Aurora Ave. in Boulder. Monthly lectures are free and open to the public. The program is co-sponsored by The Academy and the CU-Boulder Office of Community Affairs on Wednesday evenings once a month from September through May.
The series continues the community program launched in September of 1998 that brings CU-Boulder faculty into the community for talks ranging from arts and humanities to business and the sciences. Parking is available along the streets that border The Academy: Lincoln, Cascade, Aurora and 10th. For more information, contact the CU-Boulder Office of Community Affairs at (303) 492-8384.
For more information on the Black Biomedical Research Movement, see the Web site at: .