Dr. Jason Berman’ Zebrafish:

Dr. Jason Berman sees children with leukemia every day. He is a pediatric hematologist-oncologist. Children suffering from acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) inspire Dr. Berman to work overtime in his zebrafish research facility at the IWK Health Centre.

“AML is the most difficult form of leukemia to treat,” explains Dr. Berman. “Only slightly more than half of these children can be cured through current therapies.” Many children respond well to chemotherapy at first, but they tend to relapse. Only some of these children can be cured through the risky and painful process of a bone marrow transplant.

Dr. Berman is looking for answers in zebrafish – small striped fish that develop blood cells in much the same way as humans.

Benefitting All Children

He and his team study a number of genetic mutations that lead to abnormal protein production in the blood cells, which in turn seem to drive AML in humans. He has been able to introduce these same mutations into the fish to create working models of the human disease.

“We are using the zebrafish to understand these abnormalities and how they lead to AML,” Dr. Berman says. “From there, we will look for ways to block the disease-causing effects of the abnormal proteins… to prevent recurrence of AML so children can be cured without bone marrow transplants.”

The RNA-Interference (RNAi) Library will enable Dr. Berman to rapidly screen the effects of many different proteins on AML cells. It will also help them find out how AML cells respond to various forms of current and experimental cancer treatments. “This new equipment will dramatically broaden our research horizons,” says Dr. Berman, “Our findings will ultimately benefit children all around the world.”

This year the Molly Appeal will raise funds to purchase Atlantic Canada’s first RNA-interference (RNAi) Library. This facility will give researchers 70,000 genetic tools they can use to determine the function of every gene in a cell.