Features
Grad Returns to Lead Cancer Research Program
OVC researcher takes aim at cancer virus - and looks to harness that virus to tackle lung disease
BY ANDREW VOWLES
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| Pathobiology professor Sarah Wootton, a two-time U of G graduate who's looking for a way to treat lung cancer, says she's always wanted to be a scientist. Photo by Martin Schwalbe |
Call it a one-two punch against lung diseases. Now back at Guelph from a prestigious American research centre, Prof. Sarah Wootton, Pathobiology, will use substantial research funding to continue studies of a virus that may not only tell her more about how lung cancer works but may also offer hope for treating pulmonary diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
The two-time Guelph graduate received a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) discovery grant worth a total of $200,000 over five years and a University Faculty Award for the same amount. She joined the department last September.
She came from a post-doctoral position at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, where she co-authored papers published in Nature, Retrovirology and the Journal of Virology on a novel virus that causes lung cancer in sheep and goats. A similar form of the disease called bronchioloalveolar carcinoma — not caused by smoking — accounts for about one out of four lung cancer cases in people.
Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer among both men and women. An estimated 23,900 Canadians will be diagnosed with the disease this year, and more than 20,000 people will die from it, according to the Canadian Cancer Society.
Wootton hopes her Guelph lab will help find a way to treat that disease — and paradoxically use genetic engineering to turn that same cancer-causing virus into a weapon for fighting cystic fibrosis and other lung ailments.
“I'm fascinated with the notion that one can manipulate a virus to direct the infection of a particular cell type and, in doing so, cure or alleviate suffering,” she says. More than that, “it's a thing that causes disease, and we're modifying it so we can cure disease.”
The Seattle research team had begun working with a particular virus called JSRV as a gene therapy vector for lung disease. Using genetic engineering, the scientists hoped to use the virus to carry therapeutic genes into the lungs. But they soon found that the same virus could help them learn more about lung cancer.
The jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus causes contagious lung cancer in sheep and goats. The disease was originally called jaagsiekte, an Afrikaans term for “jaag” (to chase or hunt) and “siekte” (sickness) that described how sheep appeared to have been chased even while resting.
Using normal and immune-compromised mice, the Hutchinson Centre team found that a particular protein on the viral coat (called Env for “envelope”) was the culprit rather than genetic material inside the virus. That was the first time researchers had shown structural proteins could cause cancer, says Wootton.
The same group discovered that human lung cells have receptors for these proteins that work the same way they do in sheep. The Seattle researchers are continuing that work, and now Wootton plans to pursue similar research back in Canada.
Besides working with JSRV, she plans to study ENTV (enzootic nasal tumour virus), a related virus that causes tumours in the nasal epithelium.
Her research uses sophisticated genetics tools and techniques to clone and manipulate DNA, grow retroviruses and test their function in mouse and sheep models.
She might have continued much of that research in the States. She enjoyed working at the Hutchinson Centre, home to three Nobel laureates. Working where scientists routinely make major discoveries “makes you realize that your research has the potential to have a significant impact on the scientific community, and if you're motivated, you can achieve almost anything.”
Wootton's stint in Seattle was funded by grants from NSERC and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.
At the same time, she needed access to a large-animal facility and an isolation unit to pursue her studies — not to mention wanting to return to Canada. She already knew about the quality of research at OVC and also knew she'd be close to cancer and genetics researchers in Toronto, Hamilton and London.
Wootton studied biochemistry at Guelph and returned for graduate work in pathobiology. For her doctorate, she worked with former professor Dongwan Yoo on a virus that affects reproductive and respiratory systems in pigs.
“I always wanted to become a scientist,” she says, adding that she wanted to be like Dr. Quincy, the medical examiner played by Jack Klugman in the 1970s TV series.
For other viewers, that might have led to medical school, but Wootton, whose dad taught high school math and science in Grimsby, took a different tack. “I was more interested in disease.”
She'd had a microscope at home for examining blood, onion skins and other things. But she confesses that she used to bring home the odd deceased fish or bird for a closer look as well.
Her undergraduate research project with Prof. Dev Mangroo, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and a subsequent posting in Yoo's lab convinced her she was on the right track.
“When I started doing molecular biology, I knew I was where I was supposed to be. I was consumed by it.”