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Her path to a career in science began with her escape from civil war in Nigeria as a child and studying in London, where she earned her PhD in 1989. There she met her lifelong research partner and husband Robert McKenna. In this partnership, they set off on another uncharted journey to solve the mystery of the viral structure for both a pathogenic virus and other unique members of the parvovirus family, especially the key member, adeno-associated virus (AAV). In these early days, there was only the faint notion that AAV would someday transform the landscape of therapy for genetically defined disease. She and Rob came to the University of Florida (UF) in 1999, when the gene therapy program was just getting underway and the crosstalk between basic and translational scientists was the oxygen that fueled the early discovery of AAV basic science and clinical translation.