The world’s first scientist to identify the gene encoding the enzyme that causes sleeping sickness (Trypanosoma) was Professor Andrew Jonathan Nok (1962-2017). This scientific discovery paved the way for the creation of DNA-based vaccines to prevent the disease, which mostly affects 60 million people and animals in rural areas of East, West, and Central Africa.
Prior to being named commissioner of health and human services by Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai in July 2015, Nok served as dean of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria’s Faculty of Science. A cabinet upheaval later transferred Nok to the Education Ministry.
Professor Nok, 47, was one of five applicants for the vice-chancellor post at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria in 2009. Despite supposedly receiving the highest score of 86%, he was allegedly rejected for the job due to his ethnicity and religion.
Born in Nok village, Jaba Local Government Area, Kaduna State, on February 11, 1962, Professor Andrew Jonathan Nok attended Government Secondary School in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, and LEA Primary School in Kaunda. He was accepted to Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria in 1979 when he was sixteen years old, and he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry in 1983, a master’s degree in 1988, and a doctorate in 1993. In 2003, he was promoted to professor.
At the age of 55, Andrew Jonathan Nok passed away on November 21, 2017.
