http://www.news-gazette.com/localnew...m?Number=18233
Brothers share twin ambitions: research and medicine
By JULIE WURTH
© 2005 THE NEWS-GAZETTE
Published Online May 15, 2005
N-G photo by John Dixon
Hussein Musa, left, and is twin brother, Sham, share a laugh outside the Medical Sciences Building after realizing they have worn matching outfits for their photo. They say they never dress alike but didn't see each other before the shoot.
Copyright 2005 The News-Gazette.
URBANA – Sham and Hussein Musa like to say they don't fit neatly into any category.
Twin sons of Nigerian immigrants, they grew up on the South Side of Chicago but attended private Lake Forest Academy in the northern suburbs. Academically gifted, they also excelled in football, music and theater.
At the UI, they've worked in research laboratories, been active with their fraternity and the Central Black Student Union and once tried out for the football team. And, Hussein Musa acknowledges self-consciously, he likes to read science-fiction novels.
These engaging twins, who laugh between nearly every sentence, have impressed faculty with their intellect, their personalities and their passion – for science and everything else they try. Both biology majors, they're headed to the University of Chicago's M.D./Ph.D. program, where they will study to become doctors and research scientists.
They are, says Jenny Bloom, associate dean at the UI College of Medicine, "two of the best and brightest students I have ever worked with."
Sham and Hussein Musa were born prematurely – at 3 pounds, 4 ounces and 2 pounds, 15 ounces, respectively. Hussein spent six weeks in the hospital, Sham four. They were the fourth and fifth sons of Kolawole and Rainatu Musa, who had emigrated from Nigeria so that Kolawole Musa could study engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla and, later, computer science at DePaul University.
Growing up, the boys weren't allowed to play outside much and spent most of their after-school hours in the library. When they finished their homework, they'd read whatever they could find, even higher-level math textbooks.
Education in the Musa household wasn't the main emphasis, "it was the only emphasis," Hussein Musa said. While their parents never directed them to any career, they were taskmasters about studying. If the boys were reading, they were left alone. If they were watching TV or playing video games, chores would suddenly materialize. Their parents even assigned book reports "to keep us from destroying the house," he said.
The twins attended a gifted grade school and were chosen for a program that places underprivileged students in private high schools. They were accepted to the Illinois Math and Science Academy but chose Lake Forest so they could play football. It was an admitted culture shock. But they eventually became captains of their championship football team, founded a library club and book fair, played trumpet and trombone and performed in musicals.
"We were the stereotypical athletes, but we were both nerds," Hussein Musa said.
They entered the UI as pre-med majors in molecular and cellular biology. A family friend at Yale University encouraged them to apply for Yale's Minority Medical Education Program the following summer. There, a course taught by a Nobel Prize-winning biologist convinced them they wanted to do research.
Back at the UI, they e-mailed faculty about possible lab openings but got no responses. Bloom suggested they go see professors in person. So, wearing suits and ties, and resumes in hand, they began knocking on doors at the Madigan Lab. Some professors assumed they were salesmen. Others asked, "Are you guys serious?"
Dr. A. Lane Rayburn in crop sciences was the most surprised, given that few people could find his obscure third-floor office even if they tried. But he looked over their transcripts and offered them research positions.
Sham Musa tested the interactions of health supplements and chemotherapy on cell toxicity. Hussein Musa's work examined the genetic content of corn. Both discovered that good science requires patience, and that you learn the most by making mistakes – a welcome contrast to the pre-med world, Sham Musa said, where "you're so afraid to make mistakes."
Last summer, Hussein Musa had a research internship at the University of Virginia, where he studied an infectious amoeba that causes liver abscesses and diarrhea in developing countries. Sham Musa worked at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., studying malfunctioning motor proteins, which are linked to Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases. He also received a National Institutes of Health Undergraduate Scholarship, which provides up to $20,000 a year and a 10-week paid internship at NIH.
The twins considered going their separate ways at times, but "we always ended up together," Hussein Musa said. "We have a lot of the same interests, and we think alike." When it came to medical school, they didn't want to break up their successful study partnership.
"We work just as well apart as we do together," Sham Musa said. "But when we're together, we just shine a little bit brighter. I think we feed off each other's energy."
They made sure they took time to enjoy college, holding leadership roles in their fraternity and other groups and remaining socially active while maintaining a 3.5 GPA. They've been "tremendous role models," encouraging other black students to study science and medicine, Bloom said.
Their road will be a long one – seven to eight years of medical and graduate training, then three to five years of residency. But they've wanted to be doctors as long as they can remember, and now they can pursue their research dreams, too.
"To get funded to do what you like – I just can't turn it down," Hussein Musa said. "I didn't want to look back and regret the chance to do something special."
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