UNews - professor of biology

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.

Dr. Zen makes his pitch

trevor.kenney — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 21:10:20 +0000

He's got a cool name, a quirky video, is plugged into social media and is looking for your support. It might not sound like a pitch for a scientific study but
Dr. Zen Faulkes (BSc '89) is like any other researcher – he's just found a new way to grab your attention.

Faulkes, an associate professor of biology at The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Texas-Pan American, has just concluded his second SciFund Challenge fundraising project through the crowd-funding site rockethub.com. On each occasion, Faulkes earned enough donated cash to fund his projects, which involve the behavioural characteristics of crayfish and sand crabs.

"It's a concept that every charity has been using for years," says Faulkes, whose interest in aquatic species was cultivated at the U of L by Dr. Jennifer Mather (psychology). "It's pretty simple, get everybody to kick in a small amount of cash and then pool the money for a common aid."

It's a model that has been adopted with great success by artists, and one that science is just beginning to test.

"It is an ideological change in that there has been some resistance to self promotion to people outside of your professional community," says Faulkes of the public pitch concept. "It's not a change in that pretty much every scientist is going to tell you the importance of self promotion, networking and getting your work out there. The only difference is a slight shift in target."

Dr. Zen Faulkes with one of his Amazon Crayfish.

Faulkes uses an Indiana Jones-themed video in one of his pitches (Doctor Zen and the Amazon Crayfish Civilization) and admits it is offbeat.

"It's goofy, quite intentionally so, but that's just me and I'm not pretending that my approach is going to be the right approach for everyone," he says, adding that people don't necessarily have to understand your science to fund it, rather they might just follow it because it's cool.

"That's something I think we have undervalued in the past. People will support stuff just because they think it's cool," he says. "I think that has been highly underestimated, the willingness of people to support things just because."

Originally from Lethbridge, Faulkes moved around a lot as a kid before eventually returning to take his undergraduate studies at the U of L. He credits Mather for setting him on his career path, when he simply expressed an interest in the pending arrival of some octopuses for one of her studies.

"I was just talking to her about class and she mentioned she was getting some octopuses in and I made the mistake of saying, "That sounds interesting", and suddenly the door closed behind me and before I knew what was going on, she had recruited me," he laughs.

She later nominated Faulkes for a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) grant and he was on his way. That opportunity to participate in research as an undergraduate student would shape his studies years later.

"I'm in a university that has, in some ways, a similar kind of mindset to the
U of L," says Faulkes. "It has graduate studies but is still mostly an undergraduate institution, and people wondered how I could conduct studies without doctoral students at my disposal. I told them I came from a place where you can work with undergraduate students and have a research career and you can do research that's the equal of any place in the world. That's one of the things I learned from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge."

Faulkes will head to Florida in November to conduct his research funded by the SciFund Challenge. His website at doctorzen.net details his studies, while his SciFund projects can be viewed at www.rockethub.com.

This story first appeared in the June 2012 issue of the Legend. For a look at the entire issue in flipbook format, follow this link.

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.

UNews - professor of biology

Golsteyn on cutting edge of cancer research

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