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USF Antarctica expedition advances cancer research
It may seem like an unlikely connection, but a tiny creature living in one of the coldest, most isolated places on earth might hold the key to a battle we fight right here in the hot Florida sun. FOX 13’s Ariel Plasencia reports.
TAMPA, Fla. - USF researchers traveled to Antarctica this year to continue their research into a tiny organism that could help in the fight against melanoma.
University of South Florida research
What we know:
For USF organic chemistry professor Bill Baker, his work has taken him to places most of us will never see – that includes under the ice in Antarctica.
"You look up: White snow, mountains. You look down: Plants, animals, color," Baker said. "The contrast is fascinating."
Beneath the surface, his team shares the water with some intimidating locals, including leopard seals.
But what researchers are after could actually help humans.
"Why should a sea squirt living on the sea floor in Antarctica make a drug to treat human melanoma?" Baker said.
Antarctic sea squirt organisms
Big picture view:
Living on the sea floor — inside golf ball-sized pods – are tiny organisms called sea squirts, which measure only about a centimeter long.
"What’s fun about sea squirts — I guess in a nerdy sort of way — is that, if you pick one up and squeeze it, it squirts," Baker explained.
But in order to survive, these small creatures harbor bacteria that create a toxic chemical to fend off predators.
It’s the chemical that could be the key to fighting skin cancer here in the Sunshine State.
Melanoma cancer cell findings
The backstory:
Baker has been studying sea squirts for a while and first made this discovery 20 years ago. His research discovered that the toxic chemical from the sea squirts can kill melanoma cancer cells and leave normal human cells alone.
Earlier this year, a group of USF researchers traveled to Antarctica as Baker advised the expedition from the U.S.
Now that the six-week expedition is complete, the team's work continues in Baker’s lab at USF. They recently got a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to fuel the ongoing medical study.
Unanswered details
What we don't know:
It remains unclear exactly when this discovery might translate into an available, widespread drug to treat human melanoma. But the Baker Lab will collaborate with the Joint Genome Institute on a five-year initiative.
"We can't go to Antarctica every weekend and collect sea squirts, and the bacterium is not cooperating by growing in the lab for us," Baker said. "So this path with the Joint Genome Institute is our path forward right now."
But Baker has the heart, passion, and curiosity to see this through.
"If I had set out as a young PhD student saying, I'm going to go to Antarctica, and I'm going to find a cure to melanoma, it never would have happened, right?" Baker said.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered from an interview with USF organic chemistry professor Bill Baker.