IMS Magazine - Summer 2012 edition in PDF format - Institute of ...

FEATURE SPOTLIGHT
Advancing Genomic Medicine in Toronto
An Interview with Stephen W. Scherer, PhD
By Tetyana Pekar
The McLaughlin Centre
Advancing Genomic Medicine
You may not have yet heard
about it – and you certainly won’t
find it on the map – but McLaughlin
Centre scientists and collaborators
are making scientific breakthroughs, developing
new diagnostic tests, and making
a lasting impact on clinical management
in Toronto and internationally.
The McLaughlin Centre derives its name
from the founder of General Motors of
Canada, Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin,
“an entrepreneur and a brilliant man”
in the words of Dr. Stephen Scherer, the
Director of the McLaughlin Centre. “When
he passed away, he put a large portion of
his money into a foundation and said to
dissolve it in 50 years, because no one will
remember who he is in 50 years.” And so
the Foundation ran a competition and
University of Toronto put in an application
and won. The original 50 million dollar
investment, which is protected, was leveraged
to 200 million by the university, government,
and partner hospitals.
For about two years now, the McLaughlin
Centre has been focused on advancing the
field of genomic medicine.
“When I became the Director, we refocused
on the concept of using genomewide data
to try to identify risk genes for particular
diseases, and equally importantly, to move
those into the hospital diagnostic setting,”
says Scherer. Their goal is to fund science
that will not only impact the patients and
their families, but will also generate information
and data that will be used for
things like drug development.
The McLaughlin Centre runs an open competition
and funds approximately 10 grants
a year, all in the area of genomic medicine.
Funding research, however, is just one part
of its mandate.
One of the McLaughlin Centre’s goals in
the next 5–10 years is to ensure that Toronto
becomes a leader in genomic medicine.
The IMS Magazine asked Dr. Scherer how
the centre plans to achieve this goal.
“The short answer: training programs,
funding research projects… and bringing a
community of scientists together.”
Scherer emphasizes that “close to 25 percent
of the funding is applied to education,
training, investing in the MD/PhD program;
and many of these students are doing
their PhDs in the IMS.” The McLaughlin
Centre also supports projects that are
investigating the downstream effect of
genetic information, supporting genetic
counselling programs, and determining
the best way to collect data and deliver it
to the patient.
“[The] McLaughlin Centre is
a unique experiment, and it’s
going incredibly well.”
A unique feature of the centre is the Accelerator
Grant program. “[Currently] if
you have a new idea, it is hard to get money
right away to explore that.” The accelerator
program provides scientists with the opportunity
to get seed funding for a year to
get preliminary data and see whether the
project will be fruitful. Scientists can then
apply to receive funding to complete the
project.
Finally, the third goal is to bring a community
of scientists together. Scherer points
out that this is a new field, and having critical
mass of clinicians and scientists will
create momentum for research in genomic
medicine and lead to more innovations and
breakthroughs. Indeed, collaboration is a
requirement in the grants that McLaughlin
funds: “there need[s] to be two or more
partner institutions involved.”
In this new and rapidly developing field,
it is challenging to stay on top of research
findings and innovations in technology.
An important part of the McLaughlin Centre’s
mandate is to develop tools and databases
that will be continuously updated
with new information available in the literature
about genes and genetic diseases. An
equally important component is educating
clinicians, nurses, and healthcare professionals
(as well as scientists both in and
outside of the field) to access and properly
interpret this data.
The breadth and calibre of McLaughlin
Centre scientists is truly remarkable. The
accelerator grants that were funded in 2011
have already led to exciting new findings.
Dr. Danielle Andrade’s research on the genetics
of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy identified
a causative mutation in the CLN6
gene; this work is currently in press in the
Pediatric Neurology journal. Dr. Anne Bassett’s
work has identified rare copy number
variants that could play an important role
in the development of a common heart defect,
the tetralogy of Fallot; these findings
are soon to be reported in PloS Genetics.
Other studies funded by the McLaughlin
Centre include investigating how alternative
splicing may contribute to Alzheimer’s
disease (Dr. Blencowe); development of a
service to centralize clinical pharmacogenetic
information and counseling (Dr.
Koren); examining the impact and integration
of genetic technologies in adult and
pediatric care (Dr. Shuman); as well as research
identifying disease-causing genes in
immunoglobin A neuropathy (Dr. Pei) and
renal diseases (Dr. Paterson), to name a
few. “[The] McLaughlin Centre is a unique
experiment, and it’s going incredibly well.”
The IMS Magazine agrees, and awaits with
excitement the novel findings and technological
breakthroughs that are sure to come
to fruition from McLaughlin Centre scientists.
23 | IMS MAGAZINE SUMMER 2012 GENOMIC MEDICINE