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From: Joe Lukong
Date: 10/11/02
Time: 12:03:07 PM
Remote Name: 134.29.30.25
We have identified some many families here where more than one member stutters. Dr. Denis Drayna of the National Institute of Health in Washington, the US has been studying some 40 members of the Lukong family here that stutter. He has paid two visits to Cameroon for the purpose of that resaerch and collected blood samples from these persons and their speech too. He has also collected blood samples from some 20 none stuttering members of SCAC so as to do a kind of comperative study in his Laboratory in the US. This study will take several years for him to find out the gene that causes stuttering. An article about his study has been published on the website of the Stuttering Foundation of America at www.stutteringhelp.org/whatsnew/africa.
The visit of the human geneticist as well as the travel cost of the various members of the Lukong Family to Douala where the study took place were financed by the National Institute of Health and the Stuttering Foundation of America to whom we here in SCAC are very greatful.
Many other families have been identified and no other geneticist has indicated the willingness to study them as of now.