Winter 2009 Newsletter

The Eye Group Go Global: Meetings, Presentations and Prizes

Dr Michael Wormstone, University of East Anglia

The Eye Research Group at the ARVO meeting (Left to Right): Julie Sanderson, Julie Eldred, David Broadway, Lucy Dawes, Jeremy Rhodes, Michael Wormstone, Nuwan Niyadurupola, Pauline Radreau, Peter Sidaway, Sarah Russell

It has been a busy year for the eye group and our international reputation continues to grow. Following on from my visit to India in January, the laboratory has continued to present work at international meetings and the quality of this has been recognised by prizes and awards. The annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) is the premier conference in our field and is the place where reputations are made, knowledge is furthered and collaborations take root.  This year the meeting was held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and the eye group was represented in force. In total, nine members of the group attended and presented their work on the lens and retina. Of particular note, Lucy Dawes was the recipient of an ARVO travel fellowship award for her poster presentation on the mechanisms of ageing in the human lens. This award is a measure of Lucy’s growing reputation in the field and follows in the footsteps of other lab members Lixin Wang and Jeremy Rhodes who previously received this prestigious award.  I received a number of comments from distinguished members of the research community that complimented the individual members of the group on their work and the quality of the group as a whole. Julie Sanderson and I were justifiably proud of the efforts of all the team and felt that the reputation of the Eye Research Group had been furthered; we aim to maintain this trend.

There has been a link between the Eye Group and the Chinese city of Harbin for nearly a decade now since Lixin Wang first started work in the laboratory. It was therefore a great pleasure to visit Harbin when Lucy Dawes and I were invited to present our work at the Harbin International Cataract Forum in August. The meeting had an international flavour, with representation from Europe and the USA in addition to attendees from different parts of China. Our talks were well received and our best efforts to say something in Chinese were warmly appreciated. The presentations were also expertly translated to Chinese by Prof Hong Zhang, who was a Royal Society visting fellow in the laboratory from 2006-2007. It was great to catch up with Hong and reminisce about her time in Norwich. She made many friends here and said that she learnt a great deal. From the moment we arrived in China we received from Prof Ping Liu and his team phenomenal hospitality. Mountains (literally) of delicious food were laid before us, which was washed down by never-ending streams of drinks ranging from melon juice to local beverages a tad stronger than that. Many laughs were had, friendships forged and obviously science discussed. The experience was incredible. The link between the two centres was further strengthened when I received the award of visiting Chair of Harbin Medical University from the vice-president of Harbin Medical University; I treat this as a great honour.  

Unlocking the body’s defences against cancer

Dr Ian N. Hampson & Dr Lynne Hampson, St Mary’s Hospital Manchester

DrLynne Hampson & Dr Ian Hampson

Based on our research findings we tested the ability of a range of newly synthesised chemicals to prevent the growth and formation of microscopic islands of tumour cells in culture dishes that contain both tumour and normal cells. Out of 64 compounds tested, 4 had this activity and none of these had any toxic effects against normal (non-tumour) cells. It is also most significant that none of these compounds actually killed the tumour cells either but rather caused them to revert back to normal. Even more exciting was the observation that when the compound was removed and the cultures maintained in its absence, the microscopic tumours did not re-form! Preliminary investigations into this effect have indicated that it is due to the ability of these compounds to promote communication between tumour cells and surrounding normal cells with the result that the aberrant growth of the tumour cells is suppressed by their influence. Consideration of these results indicates that:-

• Drugs developed from these compounds may have the ability to prevent cancer from forming at its earliest stages by inducing communication between microscopic tumours and the normal cells that surround them.
• Such drugs would not need to be given continuously to prevent the tumour from re-forming.
• These drugs may have the ability to inhibit the spread of microscopic secondary cancers by the same mechanism

In theory humans and animals should develop many more cancers than they actually do yet the reasons for why this does not happen are not clear. Our results suggest that, under certain circumstances, normal cells can take control of cancer cells before they develop into full-blow disease. We believe this process takes place naturally all the time which explains why people don’t develop as many cancers as they otherwise would. Our chemical intervention merely enhances a natural process.

Finally, it is well known that when cancers reoccur after treatment with strong chemotherapy drugs or radiation, they are usually very resistant to further therapies of this sort. This is caused by these treatments initially killing all the sensitive cancer cells with only resistant cells surviving. Another potential benefit of the approach suggested by our work is that it does not actually kill the cancer cells which should greatly reduce the chance of cancers acquiring resistance to the therapeutic effects of our compounds.

In summary we now wish to investigate how these compounds actually work to produce these effects and also to carry out what is called ‘lead optimisation’ where the chemicals are modified to optimise their potency.

For more information see:

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=4980

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161923.php

New Laboratory for Cervical Cancer Research

Drs Ian & Lynne Hampson, St Mary’s Hospital Manchester

In June 2009 the gynaecological oncology research group moved to its new home in Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The laboratories are based on the Research Floor of the recently completed new St Mary’s Hospital which provides state of the art hospital and research facilities. The newly constructed Manchester hospitals were built at a cost of >£500 million and we are privileged to be based within them. The gynaecological oncology group is part of the highly acclaimed University of Manchester School of Cancer and Imaging Sciences which, in a recent government survey of research output, was judged to be the top place to carry our cancer research in the UK. It is our hope that the new facilities will enable this level of achievement to be maintained.           

Making a tetraspanin toolkit

Dr Peter Monk, University of Sheffield

PhD Student Marzieh Fanaei

Tetraspanins are a group of proteins found on the surface of cells including human cells.  They have been linked to several human diseases including cancer, Hepatitis C and HIV-1 infection but little is known about their function.  To date, tetraspanins have been studied using genetically-manipulated mice and also antibodies generated in animals. To get around the issues associated with these methods, we aim to make a set of research tools for studying tetraspanin proteins using bacteria instead of animals.

The first step is to make the most important part of the protein, the EC2, for each tetraspanin (see figure). So far, EC2s have been made for only 8 out of the 33 tetraspanins. EC2s are excellent tools for research, for example we have already shown that some EC2s can prevent HIV infection of white blood cells and Hepatitis C infection of liver cells. They can also be used in a process called ‘phage display’ to select desired antibodies against each tetraspanin, without using animals. 

The tools that we make as part of this project will be sent to researchers worldwide to investigate different aspects of tetraspanin function. Research in our own lab has recently focused on the role of tetraspanins in the formation of cells involved in bone erosion. Bone erosion occurs in diseases like osteoporosis and arthritis. The use of EC2s will enable us to study and understand how tetraspanins affect bone erosion and hopefully lead to new therapies.

Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals Great Britain 2008

Just under 3.7 million procedures were started in 2008, a rise of 454,000 (14%) on 2007.  Use of non-human primates rose by slightly over 600 (+16%), due to an increase of 1,000 (+ 33%) procedures involving old world (Africa and Asia) primates and a fall of 400 (- 53%) procedures using new world (Central and South America) primates. 

Breeding for the production of harmful mutant and genetically modified animals accounted for nearly two fifths (1.4 million or 38%) of the total procedures started in 2008.  Non-toxicological procedures accounted for eighty-seven percent of the procedures started in 2008.  The main areas of use were for immunological studies, pharmaceutical research and development, cancer research, anatomy and physiology.  Of all the toxicological procedures (13% of all procedures) conducted in 2008, seventy-one percent were performed to conform to legal and regulatory requirements.

HC 800   London:   The Stationery Office

Crown Copyright 2009