Dr. Jonathon Pines, Cancer Research UK Director of Research in Cell Division, visits the University of Ottawa

This is Alexandra Weirich( SIN intern) guestblogging about a recent UK scientist visit to Canada.

Dr. Jonathon Pines jumped the pond this week to “cross fertilize” (Dr. Pines’ phrase) with researchers in Montreal and Ottawa; that is, to exchange ideas, research approaches, and information with Canadian researchers in the cell cycle field. Dr. Pines is a principal investigator at the Gurdon Institute, Cambridge and the Cancer Research UK Director of Research in Cell Division. I was able to catch up with him after his lecture at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Medicine to ask him a bit more about his work, which focuses on the mechanics of cell division in mitosis; simply, how does one cell divide into two identical daughter cells without making mistakes?

When this process goes wrong, it can lead to cancer. Many early anti-cancer drugs were effective at killing cancer cells, but with harmful side effects to healthy tissues. Ongoing research into exactly how these anti-cancer drugs work will help researchers develop more efficient treatments, explained Dr. Pines. The hope is that new drugs that target cancer cells more specifically will have fewer side effects.

He agreed that collaboration and cooperation between the UK and Canada is of huge importance, especially in collective endeavours like science. Researchers cannot discover all the answers to complex scientific questions alone. He also expressed concern over the decline in funding of basic research programs.

People often think that researchers should be able to translate the large amount of information gathered from scientific efforts [like the Human Genome Project] into clinically useful treatments almost immediately. They no longer think that basic research is worth funding, explained Dr. Pines.

The problem of sorting out the meaning behind the data is more safely and more effectively carried out in simpler non-human model organisms, and this is considered basic research. Within the scientific community, clinical researchers must work together with basic researchers, and that means internationally, in order to understand and solve difficult health problems.

To find out more about Dr. Pines’ research, check o

ut the Pines Lab website here.