No matter where you walk in Fred Hutch, you are constantly reminded of their mission statement: “Cures Start Here”. Those three simple words carry the weight of decades worth of work done by the research center to not just cure cancer, but understand it at every level. These past two weeks have involved talks, lectures, and tours by the very people working to do just that. I came into the program expecting the highlights to be lab work, but my favorite experience was meeting with researchers who explained how their research expanded on basic biology concepts to ask the all important questions of “how?” and “why?”. Each researcher, lab tech, director, or biologist had a different subject of interest that they were clearly passionate about and it was exciting to see the breakthroughs and innovative research going on all around us.
It was difficult to pick a single highlight but the trip to the Project Violet lab was definitely a bit of geek out moment for me. The presentation done by Ms. Turnbaugh was intriguing in regards to the use of toxins found in certain organisms like scorpions or even potatoes as potential anti-cancer compounds. These toxins can be engineered to target specific cancer cells or attach to chemotherapy drugs, paving the way for precision therapy that doesn’t target healthy cells. It opened my eyes to how complicated and interconnected that the interactions among normal and cancerous cells are at a molecular level.
Following her presentation, we visited the lab where Dr. Mesfin Gewe showed us the extremely sophisticated (and expensive) technology that they used to isolate, purify, and analyze proteins. As we were shown around the lab, Dr. Gewe pointed out the many pieces of artwork that paid tribute to some of the patients that had lost their lives to cancer. It was important for the team there to be reminded of who they were doing their research for. Currently they are working to study optides (small proteins produced by certain organisms) that target brain cancer, throat tumors, and melanoma, among many others, in order to develop a new class of drugs. Prior to this program, it had never dawned on me how fundamentally important proteins were to current cancer research and drug development. The current diversity in proteins and the ability to modify them opens up endless possibilities in cancer treatment, and scientists are only beginning to unlock some of their potential. It was also interesting to see the connections between the work being done by Dr. Olson and his team and the X ray crystallography we saw in Dr. Barry Stoddard’s lab, which was fascinating in its own right. Both work with proteins but their research reveals different aspects about protein structure and its function. Either way, I was deeply impressed by the commitment shown by the researchers to attack their toughest problems from every angle. As the program comes to a close, my insight into the work being done here at Fred Hutch has proven to me that it really does take a village to tackle something as complex as cancer.
