COMMUNIQUé - College of Medicine - University of Saskatchewan

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Heather was selected the Best Student Paper Award at the
56th Annual Conference of the Canadian fertility and
andrology Society. The paper, entitled ‘ A Single 20mg dose
of Aromatase Inhibitor Does Not Affect Folliculogenesis
in the Folliculr Phase of the Menstrual Cycle’, was co-authored
with Donna Chizen an Gregg Adams.
And by learning more about how estrogen encourages the
growth of ovarian follicles where eggs are developed, she
could help design more effective therapy for women who have
difficulties conceiving.
“It’s a simple study with profound implications,” Pierson says.
While in France, Allaway learned about space travel and planned
her research so to be relevant to a career as an astronaut.
“For the next generation of astronauts, NASA and the European
Space Agency will be looking for physicians, scientists and
engineers as well as pilots,” says Pierson. “This is what Heather
is preparing for.”
In 2008, Allaway went on a two-week mission at the International
Mars Society Mars Desert Research Station in Utah where researchers
work in a remote environment reminiscent of the red planet.
Allaway sees a need for more information to educate and
empower women around the world to take control of their bodies.
She recruits her own research volunteers, educating them along
the way about how reproduction works.
“The best part of my work is getting to know the amazing women
who volunteer,” Allaway says. “They give their time to learn more
about a subject that is still a touchy topic to most people.”
While Pierson anticipates outstanding PhD work from Allaway, he
is just as optimistic about her career in space travel, noting that
“farm kids have an incredible work ethic.”
Graduate student Lisa Johnson wrote the above article while
completing an internship at the U of S research communications
office. Visit www.usask/research for more stories about
student research. n
This article recently appeared in the Saskatoon Star Phoneix.
Depression, pills
and Alzheimer’s disease
Is our society’s love affair with antidepressants
setting us up for an epidemic of early-onset
Alzheimer’s disease?
“Depression doesn’t necessarily cause more
Alzheimer’s disease, but what it does is it
causes Alzheimer’s disease to happen earlier,”
says Dr. Darrell Mousseau. “Depression is
doing something to the brain that makes
it much more vulnerable to developing
Alzheimer’s disease earlier on.”
Mousseau, a professor in the U of S College
of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry,
together with his team, has found that an
enzyme that plays an important role in
depression can severely weaken brain cells
and perhaps trigger the processes that lead
to Alzheimer’s disease. The team is also
looking at the role of antidepressants in
this process.
“We have to be careful about what kind of
drugs we’re putting into depressed patients
because that could actually be creating
Alzheimer’s in some people,” he says.
“Instead of developing it when they’re 70,
maybe they’ll develop it when they’re 50 or 40.”
Dr. Mousseau holds the Saskatchewan
Research Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease and
Related Dementia. The chair is a partnership
among SHRF, the Alzheimer Society of
Saskatchewan, and the University of
Saskatchewan.
Each funding partner provides $100,000
per year for five years, while the U of S
provides the necessary infrastructure and
support. It is the first chair under SHRF’s new
Saskatchewan Research Chairs program.
Over the next five years of his Chair’s term
Mousseau and his team hope to come
closer to discovering a way to provide
earlier diagnostic measures and prevent
Alzheimer’s disease in a significant portion
of the population.
As Canada’s population ages, finding the
cause of and cure for Alzheimer’s disease is
expected to become critically important.
In its report The Rising Tide, the Alzheimer
Society estimates that if nothing is done to
stop or slow the disease, by the year 2038
one person will develop Alzheimer’s disease
or a related dementia every two minutes
in Canada. n
Dr. Darrell Mousseau and his team will use advanced
research tools such as those at the Canadian Light
Source at the University of Saskatchewan to study
links among depression, antidepressant drugs, and
Alzheimer’s disease.
This story and photograph provided courtesy of SHRF.
University of Saskatchewan • College of Medicine C O M M U N I Q U É 11