Abigail, a PhD student in Victoria’s School of Biological Sciences, is one of four students around New Zealand awarded a 2015 Earle Scholarship in Technology.
Administered by Universities New Zealand, the scholarships support postgraduate research into aspects of innovation and product development or bioprocess technology.
Abigail’s research will focus on understanding how specific enzymes—bacterial nitroreductase enzymes—can be used to develop new cancer therapies.
“These enzymes are proving an important tool in the development of new cancer therapies, as they can convert a non-toxic ‘prodrug’—a medication that is inactive until metabolised by the body—to a toxic drug that causes cell death,” says Abigail.
“We want to use this property to develop a cancer gene therapy, in which tumour-specific bacteria will deliver genes that instruct an enzyme to specifically kill cancerous cells.
“The research focuses on developing a treatment with minimal damage to healthy tissues. We will be able to confidently see if the enzymes are confined to the tumour—an important safety feature.”
Abigail says nitroreductase enzymes also contribute to understanding how different tissues and cells regenerate.
“Cell ablation therapy can be used to knock out certain cell types that will in turn mimic a diseased tissue state. This means we can look into how this disease state can be reversed or treated by testing compounds that promote cell regeneration.”
Abigail’s research is co-supervised by Associate Professor David Ackerley at Victoria and Professor Vic Arcus at the University of Waikato, and carried out in collaboration with researchers at John Hopkins University in the United States and the universities of Waikato and Auckland.
Conducting research that has a real-world, medical application has always been her goal, says Abigail.
“Biotechnology is an exciting and rapidly advancing field, and I’m excited to be working on this collaborative project that ultimately aims to improve the health and wellbeing of patients worldwide.”