Going the extra yard

Prof Peter Rowe, the current Lorimer Dods Professor and Director of the Children's Medical Research Institute (CMRI), Westmead, NSW, is gearing up for his final few years in this position.

Rowe trained as a gastroenterologist in Sydney and in the early 1960s headed to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, US, for training in biochemistry and cell biology with James Wyngaarden (who later became NIH director from 1982-1989). Returning to Australia in 1969, Rowe took up an academic position at the Institute of Child Health at Camperdown (part of the University of Sydney) and in 1980 was appointed director of the CMRI.

Despite his work as director, he still maintains a strong interest in clinical medicine, "I've been involved in research at the molecular level for the last 30 years, which has been a fascinating period in biological research," says Rowe.

The CMRI was established in 1958 as a part of the Children's Hospital at Camperdown and in 1992 CMRI moved to Westmead to special custom-built facilities: "...we'd already made, in 1982, a deliberate decision to move into and focus on very specific research areas because of the big changes happening in the field of biological sciences through the 1970s. The major impact of the recombinant DNA revolution, the capacity to manipulate genomes and the evolution of cell culture systems, all this provided us with the capacity to modify the genetic content of cells," explains Rowe. With this plan, Rowe set out to recruit progressively a number of skilled researchers over time. CMRI was always interested in looking at the applications of basic research to human health care problems and, as gene therapy evolved, it became a natural progression to move into that area," says Rowe.

Research attitudes

CMRI tries to offer scientists the opportunity to do cutting-edge research by using the institute's resources to 'push the extra yard', so that they are not doing what Rowe refers to as 'me-too' research. "That has its disadvantages in that many granting agencies, more specifically people reviewing grants within a small community will prefer to support a conservative approach to research. I've never been a great believer in so called 'safe' research -- I don't believe in wasting resources, but I believe in people exploring their ideas and it is critical that the appropriate tools and resources are available to do the job," says Rowe.

This flexibility, along with a basic research approach, is reflected in Rowe's staff and their research outcomes. The researchers at CMRI do exactly that -- research. They are not directly involved in clinical issues, although many of the things they look at are relevant to clinical care, disease diagnosis and therapy.

For example Dr Patrick Tam, head of embryology, is working on the early stages of cellular and molecular formation of the body, using a mouse model to understand cell lineage. This is correlated with the potential use of embryonic and adult stem cells, for the treatment of human disease.

Other research teams are working on telomeres, DNA protein caps on the ends of chromosomes. Dr Tracy Bryan, head of cell biology, who returned to Australia from the US at the end of 2001, is also looking at the telomerase enzyme and has discovered that some cancer cells (ALT cell lines) can lengthen their telomeres without the use of telomerase. These telomere re-lengthening mechanisms of cancer cells provide potential targets for novel anti-cancer therapies.

The future

Rowe will be continuing as director and will oversee an extension to the current building over the next few months to develop resources for bioinformatics and proteomics. He has also been building links with universities in the Sydney, Campbelltown and Wollongong areas and plans to continue to do so -- "there are bright people everywhere and that's why I think it's important to keep the local links going well," explains Rowe.

"As to the general thrust of how the institute is run, I'd like to think it would continue in a similar fashion -- just try to achieve the best standards in what you're doing -- good science is good science. I think the future directions will be largely set not so much by my eventual successor, but by the availability and specific interests of top-flight young scientists returning to Australia."