Researcher, law student, new father triumphed over adversity

David DeHart will be 30 in August. As he graduates from the College of Graduate Studies at the Medical University of South Carolina with a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences, he’s also finishing his first year of law school. His journey was not for the faint of heart. DeHart, once a foster child, now shares the company of researchers and lawyers.

Not only does he hold his own, he helps others along the way.DeHart lived in group and foster homes from the time he was 13 until 18. It was difficult explaining to kids and teachers in public school that you live in a group home. Kids are mean, and sadly, some adults are even meaner. He grew up in York County, South Carolina. He came from a dysfunctional home, he said. His mom remarried when he was 1½, and his stepfather drew the ire of relatives who made it their mission to break up the family. While his parents remained together, the turmoil hurt the children.

As a child, he didn’t understand why the Department of Social Services took him from his home.He suffered severe depression. He often felt helpless. He had no freedom. For a kid who was used to roaming hundreds of acres and riding bikes miles to his friends’ houses, it was hard.The kids in the group home ran the gamut — the ones no one wanted and those who’d been neglected, sexually abused, beaten. Others were there for behavior problems — he was one of them. Having been fed a steady diet of manipulations and lies by family members, he eventually turned against his parents. He became angry.

“I had contempt for my parents. I wouldn’t even visit with my mom,” he admitted regretfully. “But I finally saw it for what it was. My maternal extended family distorted my childhood reality. I realized it wasn’t my parents’ fault, and around 17 I began making amends. I used to blame myself and ask why I was such a bad apple. I was a hellion.”But DeHart wasn’t your run-of-the-mill troublemaker.“I was a hellion with a heart,” he said, his warmth punctuated with bursts of laughter.“I loved animals. I never picked on people. But if somebody picked on me, I didn’t just defend myself — let’s just say I made sure it didn’t happen again. If teachers were treating me badly, which often happens with troubled kids, I stood up for myself. Teachers put troubled kids in corners. They isolate them,” he said, allowing his pain to show momentarily.

“Teachers often throw them in the trash can.” But not all teachers. Through those impressionable teenage years, a series of cherished mentors made all the difference in his life. From a bus driver and choir director to a geometry teacher, gifted counselor and biology professor — had these dedicated women not seen something special in him, he’s not sure where he’d be today.Cheryl Moss suspended him from her school bus countless times. Eventually she realized something deeper was going on and took the time to discuss it with his parents.

When she learned more about DeHart, she took him under her wing and a lifelong friendship developed.He moved a lot while in the state’s custody —  eight relocations in five years. Luckily, he was a gifted student. He excelled at every subject and maintained a high GPA in honors courses. Even after being expelled in the ninth grade for a minor first offense, he received the student of the month award by mail. Through it all, Jo Hood, his geometry teacher, watched over and mentored him and became a fixture in his life.

She took him to church. He spent holidays with her family. She was like his surrogate mother, he said, helping him work through the turmoil.After an unbearable year in a military alternative school, he finally ended up at a school he loved — Northwestern High School in Rock Hill. He fell in love with school, he said, adding that it was very motivating not to be in trouble. He credits Elizabeth Mixon, his choir director. His choir was No. 1 in the state every year he was in it, and one year, it even earned the No. 1 position out of 32 schools in a national competition.

Choir and Mixon helped him make it through two years in a rocky foster situation — one that came with many unexpected ups and downs. He wondered many times if he would ever find peace. After a tense situation when his foster father’s rage boiled over, he had to be relocated emergently. Finally, he was placed in a stable foster home. That was three weeks before his senior year would start, and the move would take him away from the one school where he thrived.

“Lo and behold — I had the most awesome foster parent you could ever imagine. She took me camping and on road trips. She was in the business of being a foster parent solely to help kids. If I could’ve picked any home for any foster kid in South Carolina, this would have been it. But I wanted to be back at Northwestern for my senior year. I didn’t want to miss my senior trip or my final choir concerts.” Returning to Northwestern proved a difficult ordeal. Fortunately, Brenda Parker, his counselor at the time, was squarely in his corner. Parker was the only proponent who shared his desire for him to return to Rock Hill and helped him fight his way back to Northwestern.

The journey was arduous. After DeHart delivered a mature and heartfelt speech to a large interprofessional panel that held all the keys to determining his final foster home placement, Parker passionately went to bat for the 17-year-old. The victory proved to be the most significant of his childhood.

A fresh start

Gratefully back at Northwestern, he started thinking about college. He wanted to be a medical doctor. It seemed to him that the smartest people became doctors. With a 3.66 unweighted GPA, he hoped he would qualify for academic scholarships. His record finally had no blemishes and several honors. His application to Anderson University was accompanied by a powerful personal statement. He received a generous scholarship package.For three years, he worked as a nursing assistant in a psychiatric hospital.

When a professor learned he was working 60-hour weeks in addition to his course load, she told him he couldn’t possibly pass her biochemistry or molecular biology classes. But he surprised her and earned As. The boy who’d once been expelled was excelling.DeHart thought doing research would help his med school application. He told his biology professor, Diane Ivankovic, Ph.D., that he wanted to do “real” research. She introduced him to Wen Chen, Ph.D., a drug discovery researcher at the Greenville Hospital System’s Oncology Research Institute and faculty member at Clemson University. Wen gave him a shot.

For two summers, DeHart worked full time as his research assistant, while maintaining his full-time job as a nursing assistant. It was a lot. This experience enabled him to attend MUSC’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program after his junior year. And a funny thing happened. The biology major-chemistry minor with his heart set on medical school realized he loved research and didn’t care for the clinical side. He set his sights on earning his Ph.D.

After graduation, he joined the Department of Drug Discovery and Biomedical Sciences and chose John Lemasters as his advisor and mentor. In order to earn a Ph.D. in the biomedical sciences, he would need to discover something novel to contribute to his scientific discipline. “I did a drug screen to identify novel cancer drugs, he explained. “I screened 50,000 compounds from a commercially available library — compounds that were all structurally unique — and I treated cancer cells to see what happens with their metabolism and how that changes with all these unique drugs.

”His goal was to find the compounds that yielded a specific effect and characterize how they affected cancer cell metabolism and killed cancer cells.“I started not knowing what any of these drugs were — they could have been — in layman’s terms — salt and pepper for all I knew. I would add ‘salt’ to this group of cells, ‘pepper’ to this group, ‘sugar’ to this group to see if any caused what we were looking for, which was an increase in mitochondrial metabolism.”He did this with 50,000 unique compounds, finding the ones that worked best. 

There were 120 on his secondary screen, and he ended up with eight compounds that are considered leads. One, however, is much more powerful than the rest in terms of causing cell death.With the leads he’s identified, a report of invention was filed through the Foundation for Research Development. He’s hopeful it will turn into a provisional patent. Already he’s published his findings in the scientific journal SLAS Discovery and the Journal of Biochemical Pharmacology, where he was first author on both.

He’s also co-authored a book chapter.His time at MUSC wasn’t reserved only for academic pursuits. He was a three-year member and co-president of the Multicultural Graduate Student Association. He said the organization “kicked butt volunteering in the community.” Twice they won the MUSC Gives Back Service Award, proudly beating the MUSC Graduate Student Association. It was also important to him to give back in a personal way. Mentors made all the difference in his life, and volunteering at the Carolina Youth Development allowed him  to pay that forward, helping at-risk kids in the DSS system build a sense of hope for the future.

Doubling down

If earning a Ph.D. wasn’t difficult enough, DeHart added law school to the equation. Having overcome his own challenges, he watched as the cycle repeated itself with his older sister’s family. For five years, his family was embroiled in a contentious legal battle, trying to protect his nieces from an abusive situation. That yielded an avid interest in the legal system. He decided to combine his passions and is considering a career in drug or intellectual property law.

While defending his Ph.D. dissertation, he’s been thriving at Charleston School of Law. He’s been named an MUSC Raymond Greenberg Presidential Scholar, representing CSL, and being in the top 20 percent of his class earned him a spot in its Presidential Honors Program. Out of approximately 200 students in his first-year class, he’s the only Ph.D.Combining his Ph.D. and law degree will make him a double threat, he believes.

“MUSC is the most respected academic institution in the state — the pinnacle of research. I picked one of the toughest mentors at MUSC — everybody knows John Lemasters. It was rough at times, but I learned so much. He made me a fierce researcher and professional. I received an awesome education here. Six years of training has made me a better person, and I’ll be a better lawyer because of it.”John Lemasters, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Cell Death, Injury and Regeneration, reciprocated DeHart’s praise.

“David’s great quality is his energy and enthusiasm. He couples this to outstanding abilities to adopt and adapt new techniques and approaches to get the job done. He was a motivator for us all. We miss him in the lab,” he said.Gone completely are the anger, depression, hopelessness. Life is good. Challenging, but good.

One year ago, DeHart became a father. He and his fiancée Raunesha Heyward plan to wed when he finishes law school. They named their daughter Faith — a fitting name considering what got him through it all and ultimately to the loves of his life.