Synthetic biology researcher awarded grant for cancer research
Dr Alistair Brown has recently been awarded a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the Cancer Society for three years of research on a class of compounds that hold promise for applications in cancer treatment.
The Cancer Society’s grant means much more to Alistair than three years of fully-funded research, it’s also a unique and powerful opportunity for Alistair to connect his research ideas with the impact they could have on those vulnerable to cancer.
The Cancer Society has given over $1.8 million in grants to four research projects and three post-doctoral fellowships this year. As a registered charity, the work of the Cancer Society is fully funded by donations and their philanthropic work in Aotearoa New Zealand.
“It’s absolutely huge. Coming from the Cancer Society, it definitely gives me a different viewpoint on the grant and helps me focus much more on what I could do to make a difference to people in New Zealand.
“Sometimes in science, the problems you’re trying to solve are very far away from your actual work in the lab. With a grant from a charity like the Cancer Society, in your mind is always first and foremost the people who have supported the charity and what you can do to help them. They’re not really interested in solving a small academic curiosity, but how the science could improve their outcomes.”
Alistair is a Wellingtonian through and through—having grown up here and studied at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington for his entire academic career. After originally majoring in Marine Biology for his Bachelor of Science, Alistair was drawn to change to Biotechnology because of his first-year BTEC101 lecturer, Professor David Ackerley.
Professor Ackerley has been the person in charge of the Biotechnology programme since 2006, when it was introduced at Te Herenga Waka. Alistair looks back with fondness on his lectures with Dave, like many other students who take the Biotechnology papers that Professor Ackerley has created and taught. Now working in his research lab, Alistair says Professor Ackerley is one of the main reasons he’s never moved away from Wellington.
“Dave always champions the careers of his researchers and students and does his best to find solutions when funding gets tight. I think that’s pretty amazing and absolutely selfless as well. He’s one of the main reasons I’m still here doing scientific research in New Zealand.”
Alistair is researching biological pathways in bacteria that were previously thought to have no obvious role. A recent discovery has revealed that these pathways produce molecules that interfere with RNA transcription, a key process in cell replication.
“At its heart, cancer is uncontrolled cell replication—so any time we can interfere with that, we might have something useful for treating cancer. We can take these molecules and see if they work as anti-cancer agents as well.”
Although Alistair would love to create a cancer-curing drug, he acknowledges that achieving clinical outcomes isn’t realistic in just three-years. His goal is instead to create a synthetic biology platform to ‘mix and match’ enzymes from different pathways. The platform will establish a streamlined process to produce hundreds of new and different molecules, and evaluate them for activity. One of these could become or inspire the next ‘blockbuster’ anticancer drug.
Alistair has a solid relationship with Victoria University of Wellington’s Te Kāuru—Ferrier Research Institute, a group of analytical chemists and biochemists. The molecules Alistair is trying to make are closely related to a drug that was developed by chemists at the Insitute, now approved to treat a type of lymphatic cancer. He has found the University’s connection to the Institute extremely helpful, giving him experts to work with in areas that Alistair admits are not his area of expertise.
“Everyone in the Institute has been working in the field for decades—they have amazing connections and a huge amount of knowledge as well. I’m trained in enzymology rather than chemistry specifically, so it’s really nice having people you can get mentorship from, lean on, and ask questions.”
Alistair’s still in the initial stages of his post-doctoral research, but every little success is huge in the lab. They might not be the classic Archimedean ‘eureka’ moments, but when things go right, Alistair says the feeling of accomplishment is unmatched and motivates him through the struggles of working in a new scientific territory.
“Every now and then, you’ll come in and get a result, and it’ll be the first time you have a piece of knowledge that nobody else in the world knows about. It might just be two people—usually Dave and me—who actually care about the knowledge right now, but there’s something super exciting about that.”
Looking at the big picture, Alistair loves how biotechnology harnesses solutions already existing in nature to apply in other ways and address some of the world’s most significant problems.
“It boggles my mind how evolution and nature can generate such creative and different solutions to similar problems. The really nice thing about the biotechnology we do here at Victoria University of Wellington is that it's focused on solutions nature has already developed. We can take them into a lab, tinker with them a little bit, and then try and put that out into a product or a solution that could be useful for society as a whole. That's what I really get excited about.”
Alistair isn’t sure what his research will look like after three years, but isn’t planning on leaving Wellington or Te Herenga Waka any time soon.
“I think as long as you continue enjoying your job, learning new things, developing new skills, and your job continues to challenge you, there's no reason to fly the coop, so to speak. I’m super, super happy with where I am currently.”