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| Dr
Konotey-Ahulu has an extensive CV. To read it in summary, click here.[201Kb]
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Comments on Dr. Konotey-Ahulu
1972
Professor Helen Ranney MD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York,
in Sickle Cell Disease, Editors H. Abramson, J.F. Bertles, Doris Wethers
(C. Mosby Co.) 1972 p 320:
"There is no single clinical experience in the
United States comparable to that of Dr. Konotey-Ahulu."
1985
Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine Dr. Maxwell Wintrobe MD PhD,
University of Utah, USA, in his book Haematology, The Blossoming of a
Science - A Story of Inspiration and Effort (Lea & Febiger, Philadelphia)
l985 pp 378-380:
"Dr. Konotey-Ahulu has contributed to our understanding of the clinical
manifestations of sickle cell disease and other haemoglobinopathies in
Africa ... His contributions are especially noteworthy; the value of his
work has been widely recognised ... He has become increasingly involved
with ethical matters and genetic counselling and has strong views against
antenatal diagnosis and selective abortion."
1991
Professor Sir David Weatherall FRS MD FRCP FRCPath,
Oxford University, in Lancet June 29, 1991, Vol. 337
p 1590: "'The Sickle Cell Disease Patient' is a fitting tribute to
a physician who has done as much as anyone to improve facilities to deal
with this condition in Africa."
1991 Professor Roland Scott MD, Washington DC
"This
book is a meritorious addition to the medical literature and Dr Konotey-Ahulu
has been disclosed as a seductive narrator as he tells the story of Sickle
Cell Disease" (Foreword to The Sickle Cell Disease Patient 1991).
1992
Professor D Geraint James MD FRCP Royal Free Hospital, London University
"This thesaurus or treasure trove of information
adds a new dimension to the world of sickle cell disease". (Book
Review of `The Sickle Cell Disease Patient' in Sarcoidosis Volume 9, 1992
p 73.)
1993
Professor A J Bellingham MB FRCP FRCPath, King's College Hosp., University
of London
"This
remarkable study must represent the largest compilation and report of
a single person's clinical experience ... For professionals working within
the communityand hospital I can recommend it as a marvellous feast to
delve in". (Tropical diseases Bulletin, 1993, Vol 90 No. 3, p 164).
Who is Dr. Konotey-Ahulu? 
Dr. Felix I.D. Konotey-Ahulu is a Ghanaian physician. He trained at London
University's Westminster Hospital School of Medicine, qualifying MB, BS
in May 1959 and obtaining his Doctorate in Medicine degree in February
1972.
He was Consultant Physician at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and Director
of the Ghana Institute of Clinical Genetics. A Fellow of the Ghana Academy
of Arts and Sciences (FGA) he won the Academy's Gold Medal in 1974 for
the "most outstanding contribution to knowledge in the Medical Sciences
by a Ghanaian between 1952 and 1973".
He served as a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Human Genetics
(1976-1981). One of the recipients in Philadelphia in 1972 of the "Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation Award for outstanding research in Sickle
Cell Anaemia" he was also one of those who in 1976 obtained the Guinness
Award for Scientific Achievement (GASA) "in the Commonwealth" in
recognition of their work in applying science to the service of the community".
He was Visiting Professor/Honorary Consultant to Howard University's Centre
for Sickle Cell Disease, Washington DC, USA. He won the 1998 Third World
Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Award in the Basic Medical Sciences, part of
whose Citation read "..and for his insistence on an ethical dimension
to genetic programmes".
When AIDS hit the headlines he went round Sub-Saharan African countries
studying AIDS, and has published two books - "What is AIDS?" and "The
Sickle Cell Disease Patient". He is presently Kwegyir Aggrey Distinguished
Professor of Human Genetics, University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and Visiting
Consultant Physician, Cromwell Hospital, London SW5. He is also Honorary
VALCO Trust Visiting Research Consultant Physician to Ghana where he is
involved in grass roots Community work, and was an External Examiner in
the University of Ghana's Department of Medicine & Therapeutics. He is
a Christian, married, with three children and ten grandchildren.
First Hand Experience
But the most
pertinent qualification of Dr Konotey-Ahulu is that he was born into a Sickle
Cell Disease family. He saw siblings in painful crisis even before Linus
Pauling in 1949 discovered that an abnormal haemoglobin (S) was the molecular
cause of the problem. This fact of having lived with the 'patients' who
had hereditary rheumatism as far back as 6 decades ago, and seeing complications
like priapism at the tribal setting even before it was described in textbooks
has perpetually coloured the way Dr Konotey-Ahulu looks at people with the
condition. He has traced the hereditary affliction in his forbears generation
by generation to as far back as AD 1670. Click here
to view diagram from 'The Sickle Cell Disease Patient', Chapter 2. |
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