Returning home…
December 20, 2008 by Loen Hansford
My blog this month is about returning home. I am an ex-pat Australian working in stem cell research at SickKids. I left Australia on Australia Day 2004 as a fresh-faced PhD graduate. Nearly 5 years have passed and I have returned this month for a brief trip in the capacity of both a mature researcher and as an aunty to see my kids for Christmas.
I won’t lie; the past few months have been interesting for me as I struggled to put all of my emotions in perspective. I have been full of joy and happiness, a little anxious and fearful, but proud as well, which has made for some very interesting internal dialogues! It took a little time to realise these feelings were not about my return home after so long away, but rather they are indelibly linked to life as a researcher, regardless of the stage at which we find ourselves in our careers.
I am at the point in my career where I am almost ready to strike out for independence, and I came home to look at research opportunities. My search started with giving a seminar to my home institution; that is to those responsible for giving me my foundations in science. This seminar was important to me as much for showcasing the stem cell research we are doing at SickKids with respect to childhood cancer as it was for showing that living abroad and working in an environment that fosters collaborative efforts, as SickKids does, has been a great developmental opportunity. I was able to illustrate that as a result of the information we have gained from the cancer stem cell research we are doing we could offer insight into why current therapies are not working, the mechanisms of responsible for patient relapse at distant metastatic sites, and how we might treat them in the future.
I was fortunate to give this seminar to a second children’s research institute and talk to more Australian scientists about the stem cell research being done at SickKids and to some other scientists interested in finding out what we are doing at SickKids. The response to my research in the role of cancer stem cells in children’s cancer was incredibly positive for both the application of stem cell research theories to children’s cancer, particularly a cancer where distant metastases are common and responsible for a majority of deaths, as well as the collaborative efforts of the team (the ward, pathology, surgery, clinic, and research) at SickKids as model system.
Stem cell research is an interesting research area in so many ways, but none more interesting for me at this stage in my career as I look for the right place to settle and establish myself as a stem cell researcher. SickKids have put me in the right place with respect to being competitive in attracting career offers and research funds to continue my efforts in trying to understand the role of cancer stem cells in childhood cancer.
I am happy about my experience of returning home to tell my very early career mentors about how I have developed as a scientist since I left them, and have made some really tough career and life decisions in this too short a trip. I’d like to continue this blog to tell you all about the process a young scientist goes through to make the decision to become an independent researcher and to tell you about the process of looking for the right job.
Talk to you next month and Merry Christmas!
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Rett Syndrome and induced Pluripotent Stem cells goes “Green”
June 17, 2009 by Aaron Cheung
Stem cell researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children have now devised a method, reported in the scientific journal Nature Methods, that will facilitate the generation of induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells. I have previously blogged about the promise of iPS cells (see related articles). iPS cells are cells which have been reprogrammed from a differentiated somatic cell (such as your skin cells) to a pluripotent stem cell (like an embryonic stem cell, only that you don’t need to use embryos!). The generation of iPS cells is inherently very rare which occurs at a frequency of about 0.01% meaning you can generate about one iPS cell line out of hundred thousand cells. Out of which, many lines fail to satisfy the different rigorous tests necessary to be given the prestigious name of “iPS cell”.
A group led by Dr. James Ellis, and lead author Dr. Akitsu Hotta, at The Hospital for Sick Children has generated a reporter, named EOS, that will facilitate the generation of iPS cells for both mouse and human. The reporter has DNA elements (called promoters) that will drive the expression of a fluorescent protein (GFP) and an antibiotic resistance gene (puromycin) that will only turn on in pluripotent stem cells, but remain off in differentiated cells. Therefore, scientists can now generate iPS cells from different sources and the iPS cells will literally “light up with a green colour” once reprogramming has been achieved. Furthermore, by adding puromycin to your culture, it will keep the iPS cells in a pluripotent state as iPS cells will normally spontaneously differentiate.
To demonstrate the applicability of EOS, Ellis also derived iPS cells from patients who have a neurodevelopmental disorder called Rett Syndrome. Rett Syndrome is an Autism Spectrum Disorder which affects almost exclusively females at an incidence of 1 in 10,000 and is one of the leading causes of mental retardation in girls. These Rett Syndrome iPS cells were green when placed under a fluorescent microscope and Ellis demonstrated that neurons can be generated from these Rett Syndrome iPS cells, the cell type affected in Rett Syndrome.
In conclusion, the EOS reporter will facilitate the generation of iPS and will be particularly useful for new labs going into this rapidly developing field. Furthermore, Rett Syndrome iPS cells that were also generated in this study will be invaluable for future drug screens that may be beneficial to those with Rett Syndrome.
Article:
Hotta, A. et al. Isolation of human iPS cells using EOS lentiviral vectors to select for pluripotency. Nature Methods 6, 370–376 (2009).
Related articles:
Breakthrough of 2008 – Reprogramming
A New Era for Disease Modeling and Drug Screening
Some of our experts
Stem Cell Origins
Cancer stem cells
Stem Cells and the Nervous System
I am very much impressed by those who are prepared to stand on the front line and do research into areas that are as frontier as the first men on the moon or as here in Aus, those people who went out and some gave their lives to open up the country.
I do have a question which bothers me quite a bit. there is much done in scientific study into drugs and therapies that “might” help sometime in the future. What I am questioning is probably right out of the equasion, but, one of the most important understandings that I have (developed over the last 69 years) is that babies develop much better when given a full balance of necessary nutrition. (My one year old grandson has proved that) particularly nutrition known as Glyco-nutrition. I understand that a few years back the MIT gave an indication that Glycomics was one of the ten technologies that will change the way we live!
Are we in all this research funding, placing this new science into the circle of research or are we just going to do the same old thing, use antiquated science to try and solve problems that the new cutting edge science would possibly have the answers to the problems we are facing?
From what I have seen in research information, Glyco Nutrition has the ability to produce stem cells at a phenominal rate compared to anything else. I also understand that there is NO funding for research into anything that is NOT a drug based investigation. Is this really fair when we all should be understanding that babies grow on nutrition and that adults survive on nutrition.
Drugs definitely have their place in medicine but would it not be better to place funding into research on building the immune system to its properly modulated level of operation? Would it not also be of far greater significance to be able to rebuild degenerated parts of the body system using the bodies own manufacturing plants within the cells and provide the nutrition that will produce the proper stem cells that the body needs for its own rehabilitation?
Another question that bugs me is whether it is desirable to do research which will bring quick regeneration to the body, remembering that the cells of the body each have differing ages for replacement (apoptosis I think its called) or is the race to see who can produce the first commodity that can be patented so they can make gazillions of dollars. Food has been around for thousands of years before present day drugs came on the scene. Would it not be a good idea to find out WHY food is not providing sufficient nutrition to operate the body system correctly. Remember, even the stem cells nurtured in the lab MUST be fed good nutrition OR they become either diseased or die.
I think it was either Hippocrates or Paracelsus who said, “Let your medicine be your food, and your food be your medicine” and the other one said, “Everything required by man for his wellbeing has been provided by God in nature, it is science’s responsibility to find it”. It was also stated by one of these worthies that every drug is toxic. What is wrong with working with nutrition to solve many of these medical challenges instead of toxic drugs? Just a thought.
On top of all that, I have seen many virtual miracles in peoples lives when they have been using the Glyconutrients. There has got to be something in them when they make such dramatic changes in people’s lives. I know anecdotal stories do not prove something is scientific, BUT, they do need to be investigated to find the reasons why the person’s life was vastly improved. There is the challenge.