Winners of the 2017 Metcalf Prizes announced

Stem cell researchers Mark Dawn and Jessica Mar have both received $50,000 Metcalf Prizes from the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.

Professor Mark Dawson of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre has helped build a new drug to fight an aggressive form of blood cancer. He discovered the basic science of gene expression in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), helped develop a drug to block that action and is leading an international clinical trial to test it.

Dawson first explored how genes function in leukaemia, then identified molecules that interrupt the key genetic instructions that perpetuate cancer cells. The drug subsequently developed to treat AML is now the subject of more than 50 clinical trials around the world.

By studying the differences and commonalities between healthy blood stem cells and leukaemia stem cells, Dawson hopes to help develop less toxic, more targeted drug treatments. Dawson is a clinician-scientist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He is the program head of the Translational Haematology Program, group leader of the Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory and consultant haematologist in the Department of Haematology.

Associate Professor Jessica Mar of the University of Queensland is analysing stem cells to discover the changes that influence ageing.

Mar is studying ageing stem cell models with collaborators around Australia to answer these questions. She is also collaborating on longevity research internationally, and will work with two study populations: ‘super-centenarians’ in Japan who live to 110 years or more and a group of Ashkenazi Jews who are aged 95 years and older.

“There are two schools of thought,” she said. “Some researchers believe that errors creep into the translation of our genes into proteins causing genetic noise and disease. Others are adamant that the noise decreases and that the stem cells become less able to adapt to circumstance. My research has shown that it’s actually a bit of both.”

In 2011, Mar demonstrated for the first time that both can be true. Working with Australian of the Year Alan Mackay-Sim and his collection of nasal stem cells from patients, she showed increased genetic noise is linked with Parkinson’s disease. Then she showed the opposite in schizophrenia.

Jessica will use her Metcalf Prize to expand her research and introduce the next generation of stem cell researchers to the power of ‘centenarian studies’. It’s all based on big data, and powerful computer analysis of the genomes of millions of individual cells from hundreds of people.

Mar is a Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland.

The awards are named for the late Professor Donald Metcalf AC. Over his 50-year career, Don helped transform cancer treatment and transplantation medicine, and paved the way for potential stem cell therapy in the treatment of many other conditions.

Image caption: Mark Dawson and Jessica Mar. Image credit: Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and AIBN at UQ.