I am Joe-Alago Onyinye O.A Medical laboratory scientist,working with Zankli Medical Centre Abuja-Nigeria.
My experience during ARISE staff exchange programme at the Royal College of Pathologists London from 30 th August to 31 st October 2024 offered me a good opportunity to interact with renowned experts in the field of hematology.
I worked on work package 3, which involved laboratory diagnosis, quality assurance, and population screening test.
The laboratory experience saw me move through the Synnovis Hub which is a combination of Guys and St Thomas’ and kings’ college hospital London. Yvonne Daniel and her team.
Daniel Montero took me on a complete tour into the land I have always been but didn’t understand, he made me understand the interpretation of HPLC results ,and how important it is to interpret with my full blood count, following up with Antenatal HPLC report to ensure guidelines are followed and the factors that can affect my results, and the lab team, Special hematology at Guy’s and St Thomas’ (GSTT) and the Red Cell Lab (KCL).Rui principal Biomedical scientist put me through the new process of testing malaria ,we looked at both thick and thin films together.
Conior and Margherta showed me the process of flow cytometry The procedure involves suspending cells in a fluid and passing them through a laser beam which helps identify and characterize different cell types within a sample, Sera saw me through the process of performing mass spectrometry a high sensitivity and specificity in determining the clinically significant beta gene variants,hemoglobin (Hb) S,(Hb)C,(Hb) D pun-jab,Hb Oar-ab,Hb E,Hb lepore(high delta chain expression and the common Alpha gene variants G Philadelphia and Hb stanleyville 11, which also detects the relevant wild type(WT) peptides,hemoglobin F(HbF)and Haemoglobin A2.
Elaine put me through the process of Alpha thalassemia multiplex PCR Assay which identifies common alpha thalassemia deletions and the 3.7kb triplication, she also showed me the process of Haemoglobinopathy sequencing here the three major steps in the sequencing reaction are Denaturation, Annealing and extension during this process the double stranded DNA becomes single stranded DNA to which the primers bind followed by fluorescently labeled nucleotide creating a mixture of DNA strands differing in length, which is detected by comparing the test DNA against a reference sequence, it is possible to determine the location of any mutation present, these mutations are
cross-referenced using a database of known mutation.
Prof Fenela Kirkham put me up on a project to do when I get home,and other research activities to participate on which will soon mature, I thank her for letting me have experience in TCD,Trans cranial doplar.knowledge they say is not a waste I gained this particular one.
My entire stay wouldn’t have been successful without the support and guidance of Kelley Price, who was always forthcoming and gave tips on how to adapt to the reality of London life and the informative sites for my E learning and registrations, I also appreciate Dr Wale Atoyebi, whose reassuring words kept me going.
I wish to show my profound appreciation to Prof Baba Inusa,Janet Yakubu, Ioannis Mavridis, Serena, and all other staff who made my stay memorable.
I wish to say a big thank you with lots of hugs to my loving chairman for giving me the opportunity to come and learn not minding the effect of my absence in the lab.
Finally,I thank God almighty for gran ng me Good health to enable me to accomplish this program.
My experience – Joe-Alago Onyinye
