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USM's R&D capacity took a giant leap forward over the summer with the appointment of toxicologist John P. Wise, a Maine native who had been on Yale University's faculty since 1997. Wise, a molecular toxicologist, was an assistant professor of epidemiology and internal medicine at Yale University's School of Medicine and Public Health. He has been appointed to USM's Bioscience Research Institute of Southern Maine (BRISM). He brings with him funded grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Marine Fisheries Service and other sources, and a team of researchers who have been on the staff of the lab he developed and directed at Yale, the Laboratory of Environmental and Genetic Toxicology.
Wise's research interests have been in the area of cancer mechanism, metal toxicology, and cell culture for the past 12 years. He believes his research will complement other BRISM projects. "At Yale," Wise said, "my lab was the only one doing toxicology. At USM, I'll be able to collaborate with USM faculty like Vince Markowski ( Psychology), (LAC biologist) Blake Whitaker , Steve Pelsue and Monroe Duboise (both Applied Immunology), and (epidemiologist) Doug Thompson." It’s a strong research group: Duboise and Whitaker both graduated from Yale, and Duboise held a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard before coming to USM.
Thompson also came to USM from the Yale School of Medicine faculty.
Wise and his team use advanced molecular epidemiological techniques to study
how genetic makeup interacts with environmental toxicants
in affecting individual susceptibility to disease. He plans
to create a graduate program in toxicology that will build
many collaborations with other regional research labs, including
the University of Maine and the University of New England,
as well as the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory,
where he has an appointment as principal investigator, and
the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, where he is an adjunct
researcher. His lab will include graduate and undergraduate
students.
Using state-of-the-art molecular and toxicological techniques,
supported by NIH funding, his lab is investigating how metals
and particulates cause cancer and asthma. Chromium, for example,
is known to be a human carcinogen, yet scientists don't know
how it causes cancer. For these experiments, Wise's team has
developed human lung cells that have been altered genetically
to extend the cell life. They will make the new lung cell
lines available to outside scientists as well.
They also are studying the role of heavy metals in causing cancers in sharks and marine mammals and comparing the effects to metal-induced carcinogenesis in humans. The heavy metals, chromium, nickel, arsenic, mercury, copper, cadmium, have entered our oceans, but it is not understood what level of metal pollution is a problem. Currently, scientists have to extrapolate from experiments on pollution-caused cancers in rats to estimate the impact on a whale. Instead, Wise and his team are developing cell lines from marine animal organs that can be tested for toxicity levels. Marine mammals are protected by federal law, so cell lines developed from them cannot be patented or sold. Wise holds a permit to develop marine mammal cell lines and will share them with other labs.
Another study addresses the puzzling pieces of information that suggest that sharks don't develop cancer and that whales can accumulate toxicants without dying. Wise's lab will try to determine if there is a mechanism, possibly a different genetic structure to their metabolism, that allows these animals to tolerate toxins. He will receive tissue from Bowhead whales that are hunted on a quota system by the natives of Barrow, Alaska. He also will receive tissue from dogfish, which migrate to Maine in the summer, from the Mount Desert Island Biological Lab. He has received a grant from NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the National Marine Fisheries Service to look at cell lines derived from the western population of Steller sea lions to see if metal contamination is contributing to the decline of this population, in collaboration with the Alaskan Sea Life Center, the Mystic Aquarium, the Maine Mammal Center, and Northern Arizona University.
In his epidemiological work, Wise is hoping his lab will be able to define new mechanisms and risk factors for cancer and childhood asthma in large study populations. Wise and his team are researching whether gene make-up can predict the environmental cause of a disease or an individual's response to treatment.
In one study, they are conducting genetic analysis of a population of women, some of whom developed breast cancer and others who didn't, to see if an individual's genetic metabolic system affected their risk of breast cancer when exposed to toxic chemicals in the environment, such as PCBs or DDT. The question they are trying to answer in this retrospective study is whether the women who developed cancer have a genetic makeup that altered their risk.
Wise is also studying another group of women with breast cancer to see how their metabolizing genes affect their responses to cancer treatment.
Wise, who holds a Ph.D. in pharmacology from George Washington University, completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis at the National Cancer Institute before joining Yale. He has been very successful in finding funding for his cancer-related research and brings $2 million in research grants with him to USM, as well as some research staff and equipment. USM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will join his research team, eventually bringing his staff up to eight members.
"John brings to USM expertise and successful research experience that is an invaluable addition to our research aims," said BRISM director Brian Hodgkin. "We will provide funding support, equipment and facilities that will enable him to continue his record of success."
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