Scientific life

A lost man

There is something I lost.
Where did I lose enthusiasm for science?

Laboratory animal course

I commute to Utrecht University from tomorrow for two weeks to take a laboratory animal course.
All researchers who do animal experiments in the Netherlands are required to take this course by law.
Animal experiments are strictly controlled by law in this country.
Nobody is allowed to do animal experiments without a license.

Even if you have a license, you are required to submit a detailed research plan to animal experimental committees. Until your plan is approved, you cannot order any animal. The organization judges your plan from the point of scientific necessity and ethics.
It takes weeks to get their approval. And every time you modify your research plan, you are required to submit modification. This means we spend a lot of time for planning before starting animal experiments. This system may not seem to be efficient, but I believe this strict regulation works to avoid unnecessary animal experiments and in consequence save time, labor, money and many animals life.

If you go to Utrecht, you can find "a thinking goat".
Think as much as possible before you start experiments.

Science

"Chance favors the prepared mind"
Louis Pasteur

High Standard Science

Scientific level of our institute is clearly high.
Without a doubt, this high standard is maintained by constant and thorough discussion.

"Two heads are better than one."
There are many smart heads here.
Smart guys come together from all over the world.
They meet, discuss and create preeminent studies.
Our studies could not succeed without tight collaboration.

By the way, am I a smart guy?
No, not at all.
I'm not smart.
I'm rather slow.
I need more time than others to do same work.
However, I can be industrious.
I can make more efforts than others and get over.

Keep trying, guy.

Synthetic lethality

To tell the truth, I didn't know synthetic lethality before coming to this lab.
From the point of tumor suppression we study senescence and anoikis.
Recent studies provided some evidences in vivo about tumor suppressive functions of senescence in response to oncogenic stresses.
It has already well known that senescence plays critical roles in preventing tumor progression.
Anoikis, detachment-induced cell death, is an important phenotype from the point of metastasis.
To understand the tumor suppressive mechanism behind senescence and anoikis, we identified genes required for these phenotypes by gain of function or loss of function screen.
Screen is a main strategy of our lab.

Our boss, however, is quite flexible in science.
He tries to apply screens to clinical applications.

Synthetic lethality provides a potential availability of specific cancer therapy.
Two genes are said to be synthetic lethal, if mutation of either gene alone is compatible with viability but simultaneous mutation of both genes causes death.

Let's say, tumor cells carry an oncogenic mutation. If the additional mutation causes cell death, the second mutation is responsible for synthetic lethality.
The inhibitor of synthetic lethal gene will be a specific drug to kill the tumor cells without
fatal effects to normal cells. This is the advantage of synthetic lethality.

I'm always doubtful about clinical applications.
Because I know how difficult it is to apply basic science to hospital.
But some recent studies encourage basic scientists to find genes as a target of effective and specific chemotherapy.

References
Cell 137, 835–848, May 29, 2009
Cell 137, 821–834, May 29, 2009