The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust has awarded Biology professor and Director of Biotechnology, Julia Mills, Ph.D., a $50,000 research grant through the Murdock College Research Program for Life Sciences.
Mills' research focuses on cell signaling in the fields of Neuroscience and Cancer research. In addition to her research and teaching experience at UBC, Queen's, the University of Toronto and the BC Cancer Research Centre, Mills was also coordinator of the Careers in BioMedical Science Seminar Series at U of T and worked as a consultant for a biotech company and pharmaceutical recruiting organization.
Her current research involves retinoblastomas—a type of pediatric cancer that results in a tumor in the eye. It’s an inherited mutation in a particular tumor suppressor gene that causes cancer to develop in the retina of children. Loss of function of this tumour suppressor is also a common phenomena in many types of adult cancers.
With federal funding for the discovery sciences in decline, private grants provide important support for TWU’s research programs. “I wouldn’t be able to do this research if it weren’t for the support of Murdock Trust,” said Mills. This is the second Murdock grant she has received in support of her research, which began in 2011.
For the past two years, the grant has funded summer research assistant positions for TWU undergraduate students Arend Strikwerda and William Sikkema. Both students are building on this valuable research experience: Strikwerda as a medical school student and Sikkema as an NSERC undergraduate student research award recipient.
Mills and her assistants are researching a protein in retinoblastoma tumor cells called Integrin Linked Kinase (ILK). ILK levels are higher in these cells, and the fact that ILK drives their division indicates it is important for their growth. The team is currently testing a cancer therapeutic that inhibits ILK and slow downs the growth rate of these cells.
Their work has led to pilot studies in collaboration with Pathologist Dr. Val White from Vancouver General Hospital (VGH). Dr. White provided clinical samples of retinoblastoma tissue that TWU researchers are using to test and observe ILK expression levels and how it changes at each stage of cancer.
In addition to clinical studies, the peer-reviewed Public Library of Science (PLOS ONE) has accepted their research manuscript for publication. Sikkema spent the past semester working through revisions in preparation for its publication. “It’s unusual to have a manuscript accepted with undergraduates as first authors,” said Mills. “This is the first time I’ve seen undergraduate students do this level of research—research that is really at a graduate level.”
During her upcoming 2013-2014 sabbatical year, Mills plans to collaborate with colleagues from the BC Cancer Research Centre and Dr. White from VGH. Mills is interested in more technically difficult work involving in vivo models (animal systems), and, even further down the road, looking at the research from a genomics perspective.
The Murdock College Research Program for Life Sciences supports faculty and undergraduate research in the life sciences at private, predominantly undergraduate colleges and universities in the Pacific Northwest.