U of S Students Take Top Awards in National Health Research Competition

Posted June 19, 2001


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Monday, June 18, 2001 2001-06-03-OTHER

U of S Students Take Top Awards in National Health Research Competition

Three University of Saskatchewan graduate students have won gold and silver
medals in a nation-wide research competition for their respective work on
cancer and female reproduction.

Shawn Ritchie and Scott Dehm, both Ph.D. students in biochemistry, won two
of the four gold medals awarded in the Canadian Institutes of Health
Research (CIHR) National Health Research Poster Competition held June 7 at
the University of Manitoba.

Angie Hess, a Ph.D. student in the department of obstetrics, gynecology, and
reproductive science, won one of six silver medals in the same competition.

Graduate students from across the country are invited to represent their
university and present their research at the competition. This year, 36
competitors attended, representing every university in Canada. Competitors
submit research projects in poster form, and are given 15 minutes to explain
their research.

Professor Keith Bonham, who supervises both Dehm and Ritchie, says both have
placed high in similar competitions before.

"Our graduate students rank among the best in country," Bonham said.

Dehm and Ritchie work with Bonham at the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency's Cancer
Research Unit based at the Saskatoon Cancer Center. They are researching a
gene called c-Src, which produces a protein that helps send signals from
outside the cell to inside the cell. The U of S team is trying to discover
why the protein c-Src produces is overabundant in certain colon and breast
cancers.

Dehm's winning poster summarized the research he's been doing for the past
three years on c-Src. He is studying a region of c-Src responsible for
increasing the amount of the c-Src protein in both normal and cancerous
tissues. Dehm thinks this region of the gene will offer important clues as
to why c-Src protein levels are elevated in colon cancer.

Ritchie's poster also focused on c-Src, and encompassed his nearly four
years of research on the gene. Ritchie hopes to determine how c-Src produces
the protein and use that knowledge to further our understanding of cancer
biology. Understanding how the gene works would also help in the design of
new therapeutic approaches for treating these cancers.

Hess, who is in the final year of her Ph.D., is part of the Reproductive
Biology Research Unit led by Roger Pierson. Her research has shown that
ovarian follicles grow several times during the menstrual cycle, rather than
just once.

"This challenges the way we've thought about women's reproductive cycles,
and so it will also change the way we administer contraception," Hess said.

CIHR is Canada's premier federal agency for health research. Its objective
is to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific
excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into
improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products,
and a strengthened health care system.

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Kathryn Warden
Research Communications Officer
University of Saskatchewan
Tel: (306) 966-2506
Fax: (306) 966-2411
kathryn.warden@usask.ca

Keith Bonham
Associate Professor
Division of Oncology
University of Saskatchewan
Tel: (306) 655-2315
Fax: (306) 655-2635
kbonham@scf.sk.ca