The Hunter Envoy

Issue date: 5/1/09 Section: News

A team of Hunter biology students led by Professor Benjamin Ortiz is working on research that could lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of HIV, cancer, and numerous genetic defects.

In a lab on the eighth floor of Hunter's North building, Ortiz and his team devote countless hours to the study of T-cells, white blood cells that play a crucial role in the body's immune function.

Currently, the research team focuses on investigating the Locus Control Region, a segment of DNA that enhances the process by which instructions for an organism are turned into actual traits of that organism. The Locus Control Region makes sure that genes are expressed in the right place, at the right time, and at the right level. According to Ortiz, the Region "works, but we don't know why."

If the team can unlock the answers to how and why the control mechanism functions as it does, Professor Ortiz believes scientists could use the information to control gene activation in stem cells and therefore help advance gene therapy, a process by which desired genes are inserted into an individual's cells to replace defective genes and treat diseases.

Research involving stem cells has been a topic of controversy for over a decade. President Barack Obama passed an executive order last month that lifted the ban on federally-funded human embryonic stem cell research, an act that has led to renewed debates about stem cell ethics.

Ortiz's research uses stem cells derived from mice, not humans, but could still be affected by the decision at the White House-the team collaborates with another lab at the University of Toronto, which, because of Canada's more flexible stem cell policy, has been able to work with human embryonic stem cells for years.

Though it is still too early to say exactly how Obama's decision will affect the project, Ortiz said it "could expand the scope of the collaboration."

No matter the affect on his research, the lift of the ban in general is a positive change, and one that is long overdue, Professor Ortiz said.

The goal for Ortiz and his team is to create a version of the Locus Control Region that is roughly half of its original size-small enough to be linked to a gene and inserted into a stem cell, and then inserted into the protein shell of a virus. The virus, ultimately, would serve as a means of administering the gene to a patient. Without the modified version of the Control Region that Ortiz hopes to create, scientists are not able to control the expression of the administered gene.

The possible applications of the research seem promising.

For instance, Ortiz envisions using the Locus Control Region's controlling capability to eventually create a pool of HIV-resistant T-cells, which could then be used to effectively halt the virus's ability to replicate within the body. Another possibility is that some day, a person's T-cells could be "trained" to attack any specified thing in the body-a tumor, for instance.

Still, the pace is slow, as the research team explained, and desired results are never guaranteed.

"There are days that are more frustrating or irritating than others, but it's all still pretty new to me. I'm learning something new all the time. If something doesn't work, we try to get a lesson learned of why it didn't work, and that's still interesting," said Forest Ray, an undergraduate junior and part of the research team.

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