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In Sickness and in HealthA scientist who researches both mind and body to help all ages
By Lisa Asher
It's 10 a.m. on April 29, and Maria Corena McLeod's morning just got a
whole lot more complicated. In addition to the eight hundred e-mails
sitting in her inbox—the usual amount, she says—she is trying to
prepare for the possibility of a Category 5 hurricane.
As the newborn screening director for the Florida State Department of Health's Bureau of Laboratories, McLeod, PhD
'00, presides over a massive program that collects and tests the blood
of every newborn baby in the state. In a typical day, between eight
hundred and twenty-five hundred blood samples will come through the
facility, making it the second- or third-largest lab for newborn
screening in the world. McLeod and her staff of thirty-eight must
ensure that their lab will stay open on atypical days as well, like during the upcoming hurricane season.
Florida's newborn screening program is aimed at improving the health of
the more than 200,000 babies born in the state every year by screening
them for thirty-four different disorders, including sickle cell anemia;
cystic fibrosis; metabolic and endocrine conditions; and hearing
defects. Early detection of these conditions can be critical, says
McLeod, who has been the program's lab director since last June.
McLeod has made a career out of critical conditions. After graduating
from Baylor in 2000, she did a post-doctoral fellowship at the
University of Florida, where research on the digestive system of
mosquito larvae led to her interest in eradicating mosquito-borne
diseases like malaria. And three years ago, she joined the Mayo Clinic
in Jacksonville, Florida, where she worked on new drug treatments for
psychiatric conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
"I enjoy my science, my research, and making a difference and caring
for the health of people," she says. In fact, McLeod enjoys her work so
much that she has a hard time giving any of it up. Despite her
full-time job with the Department of Health, she continues to work part
time on a research project she began at the Mayo Clinic.
"I just don't like to leave unfinished business anywhere," she
explains, "so I agreed to continue helping them on a part-time basis
until the project could be self-sustaining."
McLeod is also continuing her earlier research in mosquito-related
diseases through long-distance collaborations. In conjunction with the
World Health Organization and other institutions, she has worked on
anti-malaria and anti-dengue projects in Latin America and West Africa,
and she helped establish a research and training center for functional
genomics and proteomics in her native Colombia.
McLeod says that her "spare time" projects involve a lot of proposals
and manuscript writing, things that she can easily do at night after
she’s put her two-year-old daughter, Adrianna, to bed. "I work with
them through e-mail at night," she says, "so once my daughter is
sleeping, I continue working. The rest of the time Im just Mom, because
my time with her is sacred."
McLeod has been a multi-tasker almost from day one. She was just
eighteen when she earned a BS in chemistry from the Universidad del
Valle in Cali, Colombia, and she taught herself English by watching
American movies. After college, she was a quality control chemist at
Colgate-Palmolive in Cali.
The work was "nice," she says, but it didn't fulfill her goal of
helping people. So she moved to the United States and, in 1995,
enrolled at Baylor.
"Those have been some of the happiest times in my life," McLeod says of
her days in Waco. While pursuing a PhD in biochemistry, she was a
teaching assistant in the chemistry department and founded Baylor's
Chemistry Graduate Student Association.
During her four years at Baylor, McLeod says she built a community of
friends and colleagues that she keeps in touch with to this day. "The
people were amazingly friendly and helpful," she says, "and they really
took interest in even my personal problems through prayers and trying
to find solutions. It was like being home."
Home for McLeod now is Florida, and she says she looks forward to the
day when she becomes a U.S. citizen. But McLeod knows she still needs
to be prepared for whatever her jobs might bring.
Yes, that means her schedule won't let up any time soon, she admits.
"But I love helping people, and I love contributing as much as I can,"
she says. "And I guess it also helps that I have a lot of energy."
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