UNews - chemotherapy

There's no place like the U of L for Anna Kovalchuk

trevor.kenney — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 16:54:15 +0000

For Anna Kovalchuk (BSc ’14, MSc ’15), the door has been open for her to study virtually anywhere she’d like, and yet it’s never been a question as to where she really wants to be – the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

“A lot of people asked why I was doing everything in Lethbridge, why not go elsewhere, and I thought, why would I?” she says. “I have a great basis here; I have a great working relationship with my supervisor and other students in the lab. It’s a great university.”

Anna Kovalchuk (right) plans to complete her PhD studies under the tutelage of Drs. Bryan Kolb (left) and Robbin Gibb.

It is also, literally, a second home to her. The daughter of biological sciences researchers Drs. Igor and Olga Kovalchuk, Anna was a fixture in U of L labs long before she was eligible to attend the school as a student. And while she didn’t follow in her parents’ footsteps entirely, turning to neuroscience early in her undergraduate studies, Kovalchuk has stayed true to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and plans to continue her PhD studies on campus.

“I was able to get into Dr. Bryan Kolb’s lab for an independent study when I was an undergraduate student and just continued every semester,” she says. “I think I kind of roped him into taking me on as a master’s student, and now I’m doing my PhD co-supervised by him and Dr. Robbin Gibb.”

Her studies continue to build on the work she’s done in trying to find the mechanisms underlying the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation treatments in patients suffering from cancer, and the methods to mitigate them.

“For my master’s, we were looking at the effects of chemotherapy and radiation on the murine brain; now we want to see what the effects of chemotherapy and radiation are when a tumour is present,” she explains. “For example, we want to see what sort of effects there would be on children who are getting chemotherapy treatment, and how this might impact them later on in their lives. Maybe if we can see what kind of mechanisms are going on in the brain we can understand what we can do to mitigate the side effects. In the end, that’s our goal, to see how our work in the lab can help people.”

Combatting the effects of cancer has always resonated with Kovalchuk. For years she has been among the country’s leading fundraisers for the annual Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure Post Secondary Challenge. Her professional goal is to become a radiation oncologist, but only after she completes her PhD in neuroscience.

“I want to get into medical school, it’s a big goal of mine, but I want to have a PhD before that because I would like to continue with research if I become a doctor,” she says. “I’d like to mesh the patient aspect with the clinical research aspect and enjoy both worlds.”

Kovalchuk credits Kolb for helping her discover her passion for neuroscience and a thirst for discovery.

“He helped me build up my love for neuroscience until I just realized that it was the right thing for me all along,” says Kovalchuk. “He’s guided me through all of this, and really helped me through all these years. I wouldn’t change anything about my education. He’s been a great mentor, and I’m really thankful to have had the opportunity to work in his lab.”

Golsteyn on cutting edge of cancer research

trevor.kenney — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:46:18 +0000

Roy Golsteyn is an associate professor of biology and an Alberta Ingenuity faculty member at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. He is an example of the growing numbers of faculty who conduct world-class research while maintaining a teaching schedule that brings that research into the classroom.

He directs the Cancer Cell Laboratory where his team studies the problem of how cancer cells escape a cancer treatment. The majority of cancer patients in Canada will receive some form of treatment, such as chemotherapy or radiation, and unfortunately these treatments are not as successful as we would like them to be.

To improve them, we need to understand all the steps that occur after a treatment. Golsteyn's research team has developed a new experimental system that uses microscopes and special biological tools to study how cancer cells react to treatments. They have found that after a treatment, cancer cells will divide one more time, a "double-or-nothing" gamble called checkpoint adaptation that may produce cells that are resistant to future treatments.

Golsteyn's laboratory studies checkpoint adaptation in collaboration with biotechnology companies and the pharmaceutical industry, with the goal of helping doctors improve treatments for cancer patients.

5 questions with . . . Dr. Roy Golsteyn

trevor.kenney — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 22:38:56 +0000

Roy Golsteyn is an associate professor of biology and an Alberta Ingenuity faculty member at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

Dr. Roy Golsteyn directs the Cancer Cell Laboratory where his team studies the problem of how cancer cells escape a cancer treatment.

What first piqued your interest in your research discipline?

I actually recall clearly when I first became interested in cancer research. I was a research fellow at the Institute Curie. At that time, a medical research laboratory had published the results of a clinical trial in which a new anti-cancer drug was tested. The trial was deemed to be successful, and yet upon studying the results I was stunned to learn that many of the patients in the clinical trial succumbed to the disease. It was then that I realized just how difficult the disease is, and that doctors and patients need better treatments.

How is your research applicable in "the real world"?

I am a basic research scientist who studies cancer cells. In my laboratory, our goal is to contribute to the cure. Cancer is a major disease that touches many people, including indirectly our family and friends. We sometimes collaborate with biotechnology companies and with the pharmaceutical industry, in which case we focus on real world problems such as improving existing cancer drugs.

What is the greatest honour you have received in your career?

The greatest honour is leading research projects that are funded by charitable donations. People generously give their money without asking precisely how it will be used. We try to meet this honour by doing the best research that we can and by sharing our knowledge as quickly as possible.

How important are students to your research endeavours?

Students are the lifeblood of research. When we train them, we quickly see the weak points in our own knowledge. When they become autonomous, they think of questions that we had not yet even imagined and thus they push at the old barriers in science. Finally, the best students have incredible energy and an open mind, something that we seem to lose as we get older. We need students in research.

If you had unlimited funds, which areas of research would you invest?

Very simple. Rather than funding an area of research, I would fund scientists who are very motivated and propose a well thought-out question. Motivated people get things done, so it seems natural to help them go to work. Our best ideas come from the imagination, not from instructions. Our knowledge about how cancer cells divide came from someone who studied cell division in sea urchin eggs. It was not expensive research, but it was amongst the most valuable and that made it an excellent investment.

Each month, the Legend will present 5 Questions With . . . one of our researchers. For a look at the entire catalog of 5 Questions With . . . features, check out the Office of Research and Innovation Services website at www.uleth.ca/research/research_profiles. If you'd like to be profiled, contact Penny Pickles at pickpj@uleth.ca

This story first appeared in the February 2012 edition of The Legend. To view the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

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There's no place like the U of L for Anna Kovalchuk

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