A Young Mind with an Old Soul’s Calling to Neuroscience

Teenager Antwan Joel Howard finds his life’s work at the Mesulam Center

By: Ananya Chandhok 

Antwan Howard working in the Mesulam Center Brain Bank. (Photo by Ananya Chandhok)

At a research center where the average investigator’s age is above 30, one person became the exception. Antwan Joel Howard, 18, works in the Mesulam Center alongside minds decades older, learning both the science of disease while connecting with those who volunteer to be studied. 

Howard initially joined the Mesulam Center team in the summer of 2023 as an intern in the Brain Scholar program, a Center initiative that introduces middle and high school students to neuroscience through scientific experiments, brain examinations, and mentorship

However, this summer was different. Tamar Gefen, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences, saw that Howard’s intelligence and wisdom was beyond his years. She was ready to bring him back for another summer — this time as a full-time researcher.

As a recent high school graduate, Howard has a passion for all things neuroscience. His grandmother, Gladys Howard, lit a fire under him from a young age. As one of the first Black women to graduate from the University of Illinois Chicago with an accounting degree, she only envisioned success for her grandson. “She pushed me in this direct path to education that just overcame my life,” he said. “Nothing could get in my way, no matter the obstacle.”

Howard also saw how cognitive decline affected his loved ones at an early age. His grandmother’s uncle was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But tapping into pockets of memories that were tucked away in his great uncle’s mind inspired Howard to learn how the brain worked the way it did. 

“I was able to show him pictures from the 70s and the 80s, of his mother and sister,” Howard said. “He would still remember who they were. It made me think, ‘So what’s happening in his brain that’s making him forget all this other stuff but remember this?’” 

Howard and Dr. Tamar Gefen investigate a human brain. (Photo by Ananya Chandhok)

Driven by curiosity

Howard’s questions led him to the Mesulam Center. When many young adults his age were out soaking up the summer heat, Howard much preferred the luminescent overhead lights glimmering over plated brain tissue. His days were filled with learning genotyping and preparing Western blots, a laboratory technique used to detect a specific protein in a blood or tissue sample, processes which many are exposed to much later in college.

“Antwan had the curiosity of a much more advanced trainee,” Gefen said. “His questions were on par with a graduate student or even a postdoc. He would sit down and you could just see him exploding with excitement and passion. That kind of grit, that kind of curiosity is not something that you can train all the time.”

Gefen secured Howard another summer at the Center after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) approved the grant for his return. His work at the Center went above and beyond science, according to Gefen. “He was able to connect with everyone. It was faculty, it was staff, it was students, and it was SuperAgers,” Gefen said. “I think it was in part because you could just sense his commitment and his passion.”

Howard formed long-lasting bonds with the entire community at the Center, especially with Edith Renfrow Smith, 110, the oldest SuperAger in the program and one of the oldest living residents of Chicago. Even though the two were numerous generations apart, they bonded on their education at Xavier University, a Historically Black College, and life’s simplest pleasures.

“We were all asking Edith questions like, ‘What was the most difficult time of your life?’” Gefen said. “And Antwan turns to her, and we’re all really excited about what he’s going to ask. He asked, ‘What is your favorite pie to make?’”

A peach pie and Howard’s ability to connect transcended his age that day: he was an old soul with a young mind who resonated with a young-at-heart soul’s years of wisdom.

Howard poses with SuperAger Edith Renfrow Smith at her 110th birthday celebration. (Photo by Carolina Hernandez)

Passing knowledge to the next generation

Combining the confidence his team saw in him with the opportunity to work with brains, Howard said the serendipity of it all was not lost on him. “The thing that causes me to be as great as I am, and to have the ideas I have and to do the things that I do is up here,” said Howard pointing to his brain. “And it’s also what I’m working with, what I’m holding in my hands.”

While Howard shadowed Gefen, there were moments Gefen learned from Howard, too. “He asked questions like ‘What is Alzheimer's disease?’ He asked questions where we think that we know everything, and then we’re forced to start from the beginning to explain it in a way that’s digestible,” Gefen said.

It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a multidisciplinary center to raise a researcher like Howard, Gefen said. “We learned how to come together and pour our resources into a single person and watch that person grow,” she said.

Howard took a note from Gefen’s playbook. Seeing the potential she saw in him, he recognized his duty to pass the torch. “Now there’s a standard, not only that I’ve set for myself, but for the people who are coming after me,” Howard said. “I have to make sure that they feel they belong, no matter their age.”

Howard, now a first-year neuroscience student and a direct medical school admit at Xavier University of Louisiana, is well on his way to becoming a researcher, doctor, and more importantly, a mentor mirroring his own. “Don’t be afraid to show who you are and your gifts,” he said. “Don’t keep them to yourself, and don’t let the things you know impact the things you do.”