Dr Marcia Roye: setting the standard for her son
Published:Monday | March 21, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Gets top L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science prize
Sacha Walters, Staff Reporter
Science has unlocked many doors for Marcia Roye, who has a PhD in molecular virology and lectures in biotechnology at the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of the West Indies, Mona.
As a young girl growing up in South-west St Elizabeth, she never dreamed of a career in science; one could say she was 'ushered' into the sciences.
"When you are in high school and they say you are bright you go into the science stream," the 42-year-old said. That guidance and discipline, given through her alma mater, Hampton School, and her mother's insistence that "even if fire falling from the sky, you going to school", set her on the path she travels today.
Roye, who is also the associate dean of graduate studies at the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, recently received a personal fellowship of €30,000 from the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science programme. It is an international programme that seeks to encourage women in science. This special fellowship is in celebration of the centennial of Marie Curie's Nobel prize in science.
"She was the first woman to win a Nobel prize, and after 100 years, she's still the only woman to win two Nobel prizes in two different areas of science - chemistry and physics," Roye, who was the first of her six siblings to attend university, explained.
In 2000, she applied and was among one of the 20 women who received a fellowship for young female scientists in the early stage of their career to further their research interests. She spent three months at the University of Wisconsin doing research on geminiviruses.
"This year, they decided that they would give a special prize to one of the women to whom they had given a fellowship 10 years ago, so they invited us to apply and I got the prize."
"This time it was just a reward for what you had done, it's incredible. It's like someone is appreciating the woman, the person inside of you," she said. The prize also involved a trip to Paris, where she made a presentation to budding scientists.
Undecided as to what exactly she'll do with the funds, she is positive of one thing - it will be shared with her family.
But what really motivates Dr Roye to get up in the morning is the thought of helping others. In 1992, when she donned her white lab coat, exploring geminiviruses, which ravaged cash crops like beans, tomatoes, peppers and cabbage, her discoveries were not restricted to the lab. They stretched to Jamaicans and her family, and community members in particular.
The 'Jherri Curl Disease'
"In my part of St Elizabeth, we grow lots of tomatoes. My brothers grow tomatoes. Everybody grows tomato, thyme and scallion," she said. One of the viruses which affected tomato plants in that parish was the Jamaica Yellow Leaf Curl Virus. "People down in St Elizabeth call it the Jherri Curl Disease, because it causes the tomato leaves to curl up," she said, adding fondly, "Trust St Elizabeth people to come up with a name like Jherri Curl Disease."
Her research was able to identify the problem and isolate varieties of tomatoes, the gemstar, gempear and gempride, which are not susceptible to the disease. "Now my brothers can plant happy tomatoes," she said with a laugh. "It's nice to be able to help."
Her second focus is helping HIV patients who show resistance to the drugs used to treat them.
"What we do is get blood samples for those patients who are affected and then we sequence the virus that is in that patient and we send it to a database at Stanford University, and that database will tell us which drug the patient is resistant to and which drug the patient is susceptible to," she explained. There are approximately 10 drugs used to treat HIV patients, they are divided into three categories: a first, second and third line. Once a patient is placed on one set of drugs and shows resistance to them they are placed on the second line and so on. Therefore, if a patient shows resistance to all the combinations, the physician quickly runs out of options to treat the patient. Therefore, through developing a resistance profile for this patient the physician can better eliminate the specific drugs which are not working and those that are.
"So it makes the 10 drugs work better and increases the quality of life for HIV patients," she said.
Balancing family life, science
Dr Roye admits that balancing her family life and science is a difficult task, which she could not do without the help of her family. "My husband is very supportive," said Roye, who has been married for 18 years to her husband Richard. They have two sons, Jamie, 7, and Jesse, 15, and for many of her research-related trips overseas, her husband holds down the family fort.
"I tell my friends that we've been married for 18 years, and for the first 15 years I've spent six summers in Jamaica," she said explaining the demands of her career. "My husband just makes two requests: that I tell him when I'm coming back and I don't change that date."
The motivation she has received from others in her professional life, she is passing on to budding scientists. While in Paris, her interaction with science students proved beneficial, with some indicating to her that her enthusiasm has motivated them to remain in science.
For her elder son, who expressed his pride in her recent achievement, she is also a motivator. "He said: 'Mommy I'm very proud you got this award, but I'm going to beat you in science'," she said with pride.