AusBiotech 2004: Stem cell pioneer tells why all's well in Wales

One of the leading lights of international stem cell research will be in Australia next week, as a de facto ambassador for Wales as well as to discuss his research.

As one of the international speakers at this year's AusBiotech national conference, which kicks off on Sunday, Prof Sir Martin Evans is in Australia for two purposes: to talk about his pioneering embryonic stem cell research and to lend a hand to the Welsh Development Agency, which is drumming up collaboration between Australian and Welsh researchers.

Evans, director the school of biosciences and professor of mammalian genetics at Cardiff University in Wales, is a pioneer in the isolation and use of embryonic stem cells from mouse embryos to target and knockout genes in mice in order to manipulate and study their functions. The techniques he developed for the genetic manipulation of mouse genomes have since become an essential tool in the study of mammalian genetics, and are widely used to study the function of genes and proteins in the whole animal.

"Essentially, you can take a locus you are interested in and see what it does," Evans says. Among the diseases and genes studied by Evans and his group is cystic fibrosis, where he was able to demonstrate the use of gene therapy to repair the defective gene in mice, and more recently the function of breast cancer gene BRCA2.

"One of the big surprises in the whole filed was that sometimes knocking out a supposedly major gene or protein in mice had no effect on the mouse -- it points to our ignorance in how it all works," Evans says. "The genotype is not the same as the phenotype."

It also points, he says, to a huge and renewed need for whole animal physiology so that the effects of genes and their mutations can be studied effectively. "In a way, physiology has almost died on us," he says. "We are having to re-educate our researchers to get the expertise."

Evans says it all comes down to the importance of the interactions between genes and proteins in the whole animal. "James Watson said that DNA is the most important molecule because the script is more important than the play," he says. "My riposte is that the play is the thing -- the way that the animal's physiology interacts with the environment."

Evans sees a bright future ahead for the therapeutic use of the embryonic stem cells he discovered. "Regenerative medicine has huge possibilities," he says. "There are many treatments that can be really facilitated by cellular therapy and we can probably make these cells in culture from embryonic stem cells."

While it's early days yet in the development of cellular therapies using embryonic stem cells, Evans says, he believes that the technology will come through in the next 10-15 years. "Regeneration on scaffolds and that kind of thing is getting more proximal. Things are starting to work," he says.

Evans believes that the way forward depends on ideas. "Once we have ideas we can start looking at whether they are possible. A lot of the time the answer is yes," he says.

Welsh bioscience push

Evans is keen to get collaborations up and running between Australian and Welsh researchers, and will be helping the Welsh Development Agency during his visit. "I'm promoting the message that bioscience in Wales is going extremely well," he says. "There's a burgeoning biosciences base in Wales and it's also a very nice place to be."

The Welsh Development Agency's international project manager for biotechnology, Chris Davies, says the agency was "blown away" by the quality of bioscience research in Australia when it attended last year's AusBiotech conference. "There's a vibrancy among the companies and academic groups, and a similar vibrancy in Wales," he says. "What we're looking for are areas where we can promote collaborations between Australia and Wales. Our purpose at AusBiotech is to establish connections."

Preparations are well underway to create the Wales Gene Park, a multimillion dollar research and industry park planned for the waterfront of Cardiff Bay with a focus on health-related genetics research, bringing together industry, researcher, clinicians and educators. The park will involve Cardiff University's Brain and Repair Imaging Centre, the Cardiff Institute for Tissue Engineering and Repair and National Health Services Wales.

While the park is virtual at present, the WDA and its partners hope to create a precinct larger than Singapore's Biopolis, encompassing incubator facilities, at least a couple of larger biopharmaceutical companies and an embedded academic institute.

"This sort of thing can only fly if you're right there in the middle," Evans says. "It needs to be a close informal environment where everything can come together at speed."

Australian Biotechnology News will be at AusBiotech 2004. Look out for regular reports from the conference.