It’s easy to be impatient, especially in medical science.
I have a cold now. I have a broken leg now. I have lupus now.
So when do you want to get better? Well, now, of course.
Every scientist at OMRF wants to find new treatments for diseases, to ease suffering and advance medical care. But they also know that science isn’t the work of one man or one woman. It’s not all done by one department or one institution.
Science is built on the back of prior research and, unless we understand the most basic functions of the human body, how will we ever find new and better treatments for our ills?
Take the recent paper by Dr. Mike Dresser, an associate member of OMRF’s Cell Cycle and Cancer Biology Research Program, which deals with how mistakes are avoided in the cell division process meiosis.
It doesn’t sound too ”sexy,” does it? Not really. But is it vital? Absolutely. Dr. Dresser, like many researchers at OMRF, is looking at the long game. Dr. Dresser’s paper highlights a “chaperon” system, in which incorrect bonds are pulled apart so they can realign properly.
“These movements snap the bad connections between chromosomes, ensuring that they won’t give rise to disease or abnormalities,” said Dresser. “The also regulate good connections, strengthening proper pairings between chromosomes.”
The applications for this kind of research are limitless because so much is predicated on those proper pairings. When the chromosomes don’t line up, scientists think it can lead to autism and Down syndrome. And while his research hasn’t yielded a treatment or a preventative for those conditions, it will certainly be one of the foundation blocks on which future therapies are built.
We understand that a future treatment doesn’t do any good for those with a disease today, those afraid of death tomorrow, but that’s just how science works. And I am proud every day to work for people who are making medical breaththroughs for me and my children and my grandchildren. That’s a long game well worth playing.
