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Daniel Gilmer
Becoming a physician seemed the obvious track for Daniel Gilmer when he began his studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 2004. "I knew I enjoyed biology, and also community service," he said. "I figured bringing the two together—that would be medicine."
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Daniel Gilmer
Howard University
Washington, DC
Photo: Tom Kochel
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But positive research experiences as an undergraduate convinced him to change that goal. He realized, he said, that investigating fundamental molecular interactions within living cells might help people even more than clinical treatment. "A doctor can help one person at a time," said Gilmer, "but a researcher can help 10,000 people with a single discovery." And so, even though he'd already taken the Medical College Admission Test and written an application essay for M.D./Ph.D. programs, Gilmer dropped the idea of medical school in favor of a Ph.D. in biochemistry.
For Gilmer, who grew up in the suburbs outside Orlando, Florida, community service has always been a part of life. During high school he volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, worked on food and clothing drives for his church, and in 2002 traveled to Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa for missionary work.
Gilmer returned to South Africa on a church mission in 2005, and said his travels convinced him of the "intense need" for more research to help treat the life-threatening diseases that haunt underdeveloped nations. He became determined to obtain an M.D./Ph.D. to prepare him to contribute to that effort.
As a junior, Gilmer began working with Winston Anderson, an HHMI professor at Howard, to investigate the effects of silver nanoparticles on human cancer cells. Silver is known to kill bacteria, and Gilmer's work in the bio-nanotechnology laboratory focused on exploring possible new avenues for pharmaceuticals. "He has the determination to confront difficult academic problems," said Anderson. "He could not be a better student, or a better person."
After his first year working with Anderson, in summer 2007 Gilmer traveled to MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to participate in HHMI's Exceptional Research Opportunities Program (EXROP), which provides talented undergraduates from disadvantaged backgrounds with summer research experiences in the labs of HHMI investigators and HHMI professors. At MIT, he spent 10 weeks in HHMI professor Catherine Drennan's x-ray crystallography lab, determining the structures of nickel-binding proteins in bacteria.
Gilmer's summer in Drennan's state-of-the-art lab proved formative. He discarded hundreds of malformed crystals before getting it right, and through the project's ups and downs he became "captivated by the process" of science as much as with the product. It was toward the end of that summer that he set aside the M.D./Ph.D. program applications he'd been preparing for months and decided to focus on a Ph.D. alone.
Gilmer is currently the president of the Howard Hughes Medical Research Scholars Program at Howard University, which gives students supported by Anderson's HHMI professor award the opportunity to present their research, visit other research institutions, and listen to guest lectures from notable researchers. Gilmer, who is currently applying to Ph.D. programs, said that organizing and motivating his peers has been good training for his goal of becoming a principal investigator. Once he gets there, he will focus his research on creating new, targeted drugs to improve the lives of people in underserved communities. "I want my research to have a human impact," he said.
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