Tuesday 29 October 2019 11:07pm
Roche NZ Translational Cancer Research 2019 Fellowship winner - Otago's Dr Sharon Pattison.
A University of Otago researcher says she is very excited to have won a fellowship for cutting-edge research on stomach cancer survival.
Department of Medicine Senior Lecturer and medical oncologist Dr Sharon Pattison has been awarded the Roche NZ Translational Cancer Research Fellowship to further her work on interactions between cancer cells and the immune system.
She says she will use the fellowship to undertake vital research using technology not yet available in New Zealand.
The annual Roche award, worth $30,000, means a member of Dr Pattison’s small research team can travel to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) in Melbourne where they have been given access to lattice light sheet microscopy, a novel way of imaging live cells over an extended period of time.
"Although we are a small research team, we have a lot of support from others within the Departments of Pathology and Medicine at the University of Otago and would like to thank the members of these departments for their feedback, support and assistance."
Dr Pattison’s winning fellowship was announced on Friday at the New Zealand Society for Oncology’s annual conference in Wellington.
She has been studying how a protein complex called the immunoproteasome, which is present in both normal and cancer cells, can influence survival from cancer.
One of the recognised functions of the immunoproteasome is to alter the range of antigens presented on the surface of cancer cells and affect the ensuing anti-cancer immune response.
“There is much that we do not know about the function of the immunoproteasome, and in the context of cancer how it might contribute to progression and survival,” she says.
“Many of the techniques that we use in the laboratory routinely allow us only to look at cells at a particular point in time, and with insufficient resolution to fully understand how cells interact and what goes on inside a cell.”
The lattice light sheet microscopy used at WEHI will allow her team to watch dynamic interactions between cells and ultimately better understand the function of the immunoproteasome.
The research may identify new strategies used by cancer cells to escape destruction by the immune system, and potentially identify new targets for cancer therapies, she says.
Dr Pattison’s research so far has uncovered an observation that expression of part of the immunoproteasome complex is associated with survival in stomach cancer patients, but can either improve or lessen survival outcomes in different types of stomach cancer.
"Sharon has a novel and ambitious research idea and, as a medical oncologist with a PhD in fundamental science, she is well placed to lead this project."
“A better understanding of how this complex changes the interaction between cancer cells and immune cells, and any treatment targets identified through this research, may therefore also have impact on other cancer types and potentially autoimmune and neurological diseases,” she says.
As part of her PhD, Dr Pattison worked with stomach cancer patients, which reinforced her desire to undertake further research on stomach cancer survival.
She thanked Roche for awarding her team the fellowship, as well as Niall Geoghegan and Kelly Rogers from the Centre for Dynamic Imaging at WEHI for agreeing to a collaboration with no initial funding.
“Although we are a small research team, we have a lot of support from others within the Departments of Pathology and Medicine at the University of Otago and would like to thank the members of these departments for their feedback, support and assistance.”
NZSO President Dr Roslyn Kemp says Dr Pattison’s project exemplifies the award’s aim of encouraging and enabling clinicians and scientists to work together to translate their research into effective outcomes for patients.
“Sharon has a novel and ambitious research idea and, as a medical oncologist with a PhD in fundamental science, she is well placed to lead this project. One of our judges described the work as ‘compelling’ and ‘will lead to new techniques in New Zealand’.”