Noted Yale Researcher & Portland Native Joins USM
USM's R&D capacity has taken a giant leap forward this summer with the appointment of toxicologist John P. Wise, a Maine native who has 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, a 1983 graduate of Portland High School and a winner of the PHS Brown Medal and Preti Award, says he has always wanted to return to the Portland area. "I've always thought I'd come back to Maine if the state ever got serious about biomedical research," the 36-year-old researcher says. "The new, exciting initiatives at USM make that possible."
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 says, "my lab was the only one doing toxicology. At USM, I'll be able to collaborate with Vince Markowski (a USM psychologist studying the impact of toxins on fetal brain development), Blake Whitaker (a USM cell biologist who studies toxin damage to fish DNA in Maine rivers), Steve Pelsue (who studies the molecular genetics of the immune response) and Monroe Duboise, (who does genetic analyses of viruses)." Wise's appointment will add strength to an already-strong group of researchers at USM.
Wise and his team also will continue their research in epidemiology, using advanced molecular epidemiological techniques to study how genetic makeup interacts with environmental toxicants in affecting individual susceptibility to disease. In his epidemiological work, he will be able to collaborate with W. Douglas Thompson, a USM epidemiologist who studies breast cancer. Coincidentally, Duboise, Whitaker, and Thompson received their doctoral degrees from Yale, and Thompson was on the School of Medicine faculty at Yale before coming to USM in 1989.
Wise plans to create a graduate program in toxicology that will have a national reputation and build many collaborations with other regional research labs, including the University of Maine and the University of New England. He already has on-going collaborations with the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, where he has an appointment as principal investigator, and the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, where he is an adjunct researcher. His lab will include graduate and undergraduate students as well as a few motivated high school students.
Wise and his research staff use state-of-the-art molecular and toxicological techniques to investigate the impact of metals and particulates on humans and marine animals. With NIH funding, his lab has been investigating how metals and particulates cause cancer and asthma. Among other objectives, they are trying to understand why particulates such as chromium 6 that are not soluble in water are more potent carcinogens than particulates that are water-soluble. Although chromium is known to be a human carcinogen, scientists don't know how it causes cancer. For these experiments, Wise's team uses human lung cells that have been altered genetically to extend the cell life. They are using the cell lines to look at other metals, too, such as arsenic and cadmium. The new lung cell lines they've developed are available as a resource to other scientists as well.
They are also 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.
Also, there are puzzling pieces of information that suggest that sharks don't develop cancer and that whales can accumulate toxicants without dying. Wise's research 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. Wise has been very successful in finding funding for
his cancer-related research and brings $2 million in research
grants with him to USM. USM will recruit graduate students
and postdoctoral fellows to bring his research team from four
up to eight staff members and will add equipment to match
his contribution.
"Most of all, 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 start-up funds and facilities that will enable him
to continue his record of success."
Editor's Note: For more information, you can contact John Wise 228-8050 /228-8049.
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