CRINA Connects Lives Up to Its Word by Fostering Collaboration

BY JASON TETRO

From September to May, researchers, students and clinicians meet Wednesdays at noon to hear about some of the novel research being conducted both at the University of Alberta and at other institutions across the globe as part of the Cancer Research Institute of Northern Alberta’s (CRINA) seminar series, CRINA Connects. 

One Wednesday in February 2023, CRINA member and pathologist Cheng-Han Lee attended a seminar entitled, "T cell immunometabolism in inflammation and cancer," presented by Jeffrey Rathmell of Vanderbilt University. The seminar addressed how obesity changes the way the immune system fights cancer. 

Lee saw similarities to research he was conducting with another CRINA researcher, Christa Aubrey. As a clinician, Aubrey runs a preoperative weight loss program for patients living with endometrial cancer. But in the lab, her work focuses on how obesity influences this type of cancer. Her big questions include why these tumours develop, what are the associations, and what happens when people lose weight. She collects samples from tumours and with the assistance of Lee, analyzes them to better understand cancer at the cellular level.

Lee had seen the benefits of collaboration in the past. His substantial work on diagnostics of uterine cancer, through extensive worldwide collaboration, led to the discovery of a new type of tumour that is now officially part of the World Health Organization’s classification system. For him, seeing Rathmell’s lecture and his knowledge of Aubrey’s samples was akin to putting two and two together. With Aubrey’s consent, he sent an email to Rathmell and offered some of her samples for analysis. 

The samples proved to be useful to Rathmell, providing more data to support his research and the publication of a new research paper. As a result, he offered Lee and Aubrey a place as authors on that publication. When they were told the target journal, they were both ecstatic. It was the journal Nature. 

The article, entitled “Obesity induces PD-1 on macrophages to suppress anti-tumour immunity,” was published on July 9 of this year. While Lee, Aubrey and their graduate student, Dupreez Smith, were only three of more than 20 co-authors, being able to say “I am a Nature author,” is still beyond exciting for them. 

The individual researchers in this story could not be more different – Lee is a pathologist, Aubrey a clinician and Rathmell an immunologist. But a broad goal bridged them – they all wanted to know more about the impact of obesity on how the body fights cancer. With that in mind, they combined their knowledge and skills to reach an achievement that may not have been possible individually. 

How can bridges like this be developed so more multidisciplinary collaborations can happen? One answer is to keep the CRINA seminar series going, ensuring CRINA researchers continue to have opportunities to share their research and seek out new collaborations.