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NATIONAL SCIENCE WEEK: Laser lights the way to cancer cure

August 15, 2005

MoensP.thumb.jpgA scientist at The University of New England is using the latest technology to observe, for the first time, the behaviour of protein molecules that suppress the formation of cancers.

The new equipment, recently acquired by UNE with the help of a grant from the Australian Research Council, is enabling Dr Pierre Moens to study the movement and interactions of molecules in solution by causing them to emit light (“fluoresce”).

Dr Moens, from UNE’s School of Biological, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, said the research was particularly aimed at breast cancer because the protein, called “profilin”, was known to be active in the suppression of these cancers. “The research is relevant, however, to the prevention and cure of many kinds of cancer,” he said.

UNE’s new spectrofluorometer uses a laser beam to excite the emission of light in fluorescent molecules. There are only two of these particular instruments in Australia, the other one being at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Dr Moens (pictured here using the spectrofluorometer) explained that the instrument was so sensitive that it could detect fluorescence even if it occurred in only a few molecules in the solution. “It can also register a wide range of fluorescence lifetimes, from relatively long ones (in milliseconds) to very short ones (in picoseconds),” he said.

The technique in studying profilin involves attaching light-emitting molecules, or “fluorophores”, to parts of the protein, and then tracking the fluorophores. “Our collaborators in the United States have actually been able to track one of these composite particles through time in three dimensions,” Dr Moens said.

In his cancer research, for which he has received a University Research Grant from UNE, he is collaborating with scientists at the University of Sydney as well as those in the United States. “Our aim is to understand the mechanism underlying profilin’s suppression of cancer,” he said, “and then apply this understanding to the prevention and treatment of the disease.”

Dr Moens pointed out that the new spectrofluorometer had potential uses throughout the Faculty of The Sciences at UNE. For example, it would be used by the University’s ecologists in the study of water quality, he said.


Media contact: Dr Pierre Moens, School of Biological, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, UNE 3740 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at August 15, 2005 10:25 AM