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Speed
of Light
by Sona Pai
In the science of life, relationships are
fundamental. Human health is only a few degrees of separation
from the soil that nurtures our crops, the air we breathe, and
the rivers that provide our water. An abnormality at the invisible
level of cellular DNA can express itself as a terminal disease;
a computer can unlock the mystery of genetic code. In the science
of life, interconnectedness is the rule, and so should it be in
life sciences research. As science and science-fiction writer
Isaac Asimov said, “There is a single light of science,
and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.”
At MU, collaboration and cooperation among
disciplines is beginning to set life sciences research ablaze.
Researchers in a variety of schools and colleges — agriculture,
food and natural resources; arts and science; engineering; health
professions; human environmental sciences; medicine; nursing;
and veterinary medicine — have come together to illuminate
new ways to improve the quality of our food, health and environment.
“To achieve maximum benefit, none of
these areas can exist in a vacuum,” says Michael Chippendale,
interim director of MU’s new Life
Sciences Center, now under construction. “What we are
creating at MU is a convergence of disciplines, an opportunity
for cross-fertilization of ideas, expertise and research methods.
It’s a new era of science, and we are right there at the
forefront.”
At the heart of this new era of science is
the convergence of biology, technology and information science.
Technological advances in the past decade have made scientific
research more efficient, more precise and more thorough than ever,
speeding up the experimentation process, eliminating human error
and making huge amounts of data immediately accessible. Modern
science has changed more in the past 10 to 20 years than it had
in 100 years before that, and it continues to move forward at
a phenomenal rate.
MU’s Life Sciences Center, to be completed
in 2004, will provide a home for the meeting of minds required
for further progress in enhancing food quality, improving health
care and sustaining the environment. But this work has already
begun on campus, in centers and programs that transcend departmental
boundaries.
In MU’s Food for the 21st Century and
Molecular Biology
programs, extensive interdisciplinary collaborations allow faculty
members to conduct research across the broad spectrum of biomedicine,
plant, animal and microbial sciences. In the Center
for Phytonutrient and Phytochemical Studies, scientists work
with botanical compounds to learn which plants may help cure diseases,
which botanical supplements on the market today may be helpful
or harmful, and why. At the Dalton
Cardiovascular Research Center, investigators from across
campus study, among other things, the effects of exercise and
inactivity on heart disease, kidney function and diabetes.
With these and other existing interdisciplinary
research strengths and an increasing emphasis on bioinformatics,
state-of-the-art research equipment and alliances with other institutions,
MU scientists are already fanning the flames of life sciences
research and blazing the trail into the 21st century.
Genomics: Reading Life’s Blueprint
At the most basic level of life, the strands
of DNA that form genes combine and recombine to create the instruction
manual for an organism’s development. Genes decide whether
a person’s hair will be black or blond, whether an animal
will be large or small, whether a plant will flower or not, and
much more.
Researchers in the Maize Mapping
Project are studying the DNA of corn to help scientists identify
which genes control certain traits. The knowledge will allow
industry to develop better varieties of corn. Photo by MU
Publications and Alumni Communication |
An organism’s entire catalog of genes
is contained within its chromosomes and known as its genome, the
fundamental blueprint that makes the organism what it is. Scientists
have long sought to understand the genome — to “read”
it in search of clues so that they might learn more about life
in its essential form. Achieving this understanding involves sorting
through vast stores of information and conducting precise, exhaustive
experimentation. “Without the technology available today,
this kind of work would take many more years,” says Jack
Gardiner, research assistant professor of agronomy.
Gardiner is the project manager for the Maize
Mapping Project, a collaboration among researchers in MU’s
agronomy
and biological sciences
departments, Clemson University and the University of Georgia.
Ed Coe, professor of agronomy and researcher with the U.S. Department
of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, is the principal
investigator for the project, which involves creating an integrated
genetic and physical map of the 30,000 to 50,000 genes in the
maize genome.
Scientists working on the maize map use robotic
equipment to eliminate human error and process many samples at
a time, a DNA sequencing machine to convert the genetic information
into readable data, and computers to analyze and organize that
data.
Once the maize genome is comprehensively mapped
(completion is set for the end of 2003), scientists at Mizzou
and beyond will be able to observe a physical trait in the corn
field and consult the map to determine which genes might be responsible
for that trait. Researchers can then look to the same genes in
other strains of maize to either capitalize on good traits or
eliminate bad ones. For example, if a domestic strain of maize
is particularly good for food, but vulnerable to drought, scientists
can bring in genes for drought resistance from exotic relatives
and breed stronger plants. “This integrated map will give
us the tools to rapidly improve the quality of maize for food,
feed or alternative fuels,” Gardiner says.
Proteomics: Understanding Life’s Labor Force
Genes provide the blueprint for life, but
technically, they provide the blueprint for proteins, which do
the real work in an organism’s cells. Although each cell
in a particular organism contains the same genome, each cell differs
in which genes are active and which are not. Therefore, each cell
also differs in the kinds of proteins that make it work.
An organism’s proteome is its entire
catalog of proteins, which distinguish various cells from one
another and work together in networks to do the intracellular
heavy lifting that makes life possible. Proteomics is the study
of these proteins and an emerging frontier in molecular biology.
“Cells use their genetic codes to do
different things,” says Stephen Alexander, professor of
biological sciences. “It’s like a cook who has 500
spices. In one recipe, you might use five, in another one you
might use a different five, in another you might use 10, and so
on. Proteomics is the study of all those elements, and how they
are combined.”
Alexander says scientists can look at cell
proteins for fundamental information about what makes a lung different
from a liver; what makes a cancerous lung different from a healthy
lung; and what makes a drug-resistant tumor cell different from
a treatable tumor cell.
MU has established a proteomics center, which
will secure the University’s position at the crest of this
new wave in scientific discovery. The center will be housed in
the new Life Sciences Center, and it will facilitate collaborative
efforts between University schools and colleges. A $5 million,
five-year grant from Monsanto Corp. helped provide some of the
necessary instrumentation for proteomics research, including robotic
equipment for handling samples and mass spectrometry technology,
which identifies specific proteins according to the atomic masses
of their components. “People have been working with proteins
for decades,” says John Walker, director of the new proteomics
center and a professor of biological sciences. “But now
that we have access to gene sequences and advanced technology,
we can investigate whole networks of proteins.”
Understanding proteins and their combinations
can give scientists insight into how plants respond at the molecular
level to variables such as sun, water, drought and herbicides.
Proteomics could also lead to better designed and less invasive
cancer treatments, and the possibility of more precise, earlier
diagnoses.
“The goal is to be able to use proteomics
to look at a drop of blood or a urine sample and make a diagnosis
of cancer without having to do a biopsy,” Alexander says.
“Today, we only have a glimmer of understanding of where
this science could lead us.”
Nanotechnology: Starting Small for Big Results
A major characteristic of modern life sciences
research is the emphasis on the tiny building blocks of life —
molecules, genes, proteins and cells — to shed light on
the bigger picture. As physical sciences such as engineering,
physics, chemistry and mathematics are incorporated into life
sciences research, the possibilities for making a difference at
this fundamental level begin to take shape.
Nanotechnology involves working
with the building blocks of life — molecules, genes,
proteins and cells. Image courtesy of the College of Arts
and Science |
“Nanotechnology involves developing
devices on a scale smaller than one micrometer, which is less
than one-tenth the size of a typical cell,” says Kevin Gillis,
an assistant professor with joint appointments in biological
engineering and physiology.
“Devices and processes on this scale can obtain basic information
and achieve the kind of targeted results that you can’t
get on a larger scale.”
Using nanotechnology, engineers could develop
diagnostic devices for human health that use less power and are
less invasive to the human body. They could create needles that
are so small they don’t hurt, and devices small enough to
be inserted into the bloodstream to keep tabs on a person’s
health. Sensors developed on the nano-scale could detect the presence
of hazardous chemicals in the air or water before concentrations
get dangerously high.
Gillis, who works in the Dalton
Cardiovascular Research Center, has been studying the secretion
of adrenaline from cow adrenal cells as a model to understand
secretion of hormones and neurotransmitters in humans. He uses
devices the size of microns, made from layers of nano-scale materials,
to electrochemically measure hormone secretion from adrenal cells.
This type of small-scale research on the transport
of signalling molecules across cell membranes could lead to a
better understanding of short-term memory formation, lead poisoning
and genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
“When you can conduct basic research
at this scale and look at thousands of genes or cells at once,
you can begin to ask questions that you wouldn’t have dared
to ask before,” Gillis says. “The understanding of
fundamental mechanisms that comes from answering these questions
is invaluable.”
Bioinformatics: Bridging Science and Technology
Ironically, as the focus of life sciences
research narrows to the smallest molecular sources of biological
information, the amount of data scientists can collect becomes
more copious. “Today’s tools provide the means to
generate torrents of data from specimens smaller than a drop of
water,” says Gary Allen, associate professor of veterinary
pathology. “It’s more than a human can handle.”
To make use of the data that new technology
provides, scientists look to bioinformatics, a field in which
biology and computational science are bound together, providing
advanced and efficient means of data analysis, storage and access.
Allen heads the University of Missouri’s Bioinformatics
Consortium, a systemwide computing infrastructure that serves
all four University campuses.
“Nobody owns all of what they need to
conduct their research in this day and age, especially when it
comes to managing the information,” Allen says. “The
technology and equipment is not cheap, and the expertise in how
to use it is rare.”
The Bioinformatics Consortium provides scientists
with the computer resources to organize and compare huge sets
of data from “high throughput” equipment such as DNA
sequencing machines; the secure space in which to store that data;
and the networking capabilities needed to share that data with
other researchers.
One key aspect of the consortium is the use
and development of Internet2, a collaboration of almost 200 institutions
of higher education to develop networking protocols specifically
for education and research. With Internet2, scientists can share
high-resolution images, consult massive databases of information
stored at partner institutions and work together over a high band-width
system without competition from commercial and private Internet
users.
The consortium also creates Web interfaces
to bioinformatics resources, making it easy for research scientists
to crunch the numbers obtained from reams of data and produce
quick, accurate results.
“The more great minds you can
get together, the greater your chances for progress,” Allen
says. “If we can remove institutional and departmental walls
and combine strengths from one group with the strengths from another,
we can come up with something greater than the sum of its parts.
That’s what the life sciences are all about.”
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Last Update:
April 1, 2008
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