Researchers bring science to public

Taylor described how pigments found in the wings of butterflies led to his contribution in the creation of the cancer drug Alimta and explained how his research in organic chemistry unintentionally led to collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry.

The University’s annual symposium is directed toward sharing graduate research with the public. In addition to speeches from professors, students share their work through talks and poster presentations. Symposium attendees include professors, fellow graduate students, undergraduates and people unaffiliated with the University.

“We want to get people excited about what happens at universities,” said Shin-Yi Lin, a molecular biology graduate student and co-chair of the PRS organizing committee, explaining that the public is distanced from the scientific research that universities do.

“In some ways, [the symposium is] public outreach, but it’s also just an opportunity [for researchers] to learn to communicate,” Lin said. “On the public side they learn what research is all about, and then from the presenter’s side they learn about how to communicate clearly outside of their discipline.”

Researchers from a number of disciplines submitted posters for a contest at the symposium. The three posters that most clearly explained research received monetary awards.

“[The symposium] is for the public, and I really believe in communicating what scientists do or what researchers do to the public and getting people involved and getting everyone passionate about the work that we do in academia,” contest winner Sepideh Bazazi GS of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department said.

“I think it’s a marvelous opportunity for graduate students to get experience presenting posters and also presenting their work to a non-specialist audience,” Margaret Schleissner GS ’87 said. “There are people here just from the community. It’s great.”

Bob Rotstan, a parent of one of the presenters, said he was impressed by the variety of disciplines represented. “We have a lot of science, economics, and we also have a poster that was on history,” he said. “It was a little more broad than I expected.”

One undergraduate attended because of her own interest in conducting scientific research.

“I think all of the presenters achieved a really informative but general, understandable level of presentation,” Christina Chang ’12 said.

Lin said that the research symposium has been gaining steam the last few years and that the number of people attending has tripled since the first symposium in fall 2003. She said she believes that the interaction between the University and the general public is well received: This year, about 150 individuals attended.

“Basic research does end up being really relevant to the public, but sometimes that connection is not always made very clearly, and that’s what we’re really trying to get out … the idea that what’s happening at universities, aside from the teaching, is just as valuable,” Lin said.

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From butterflies to saving lives

In the spirit of the symposium, Taylor attempted to explain in his speech how the development of Alimta was an exploratory process that took many years to complete.

“Relatively few of you are organic chemists, and I have tried to put together this lecture in a way that doesn’t require much in the way of organic chemistry,” Taylor said.

Though research is often funded with the expectation that there is an ultimate goal, Taylor did not begin his research on butterfly wings with the intention of creating a drug that treats cancer, he explained.

“There has to be something said for the value of academic research that is not driven by an objective,” Taylor said, echoing an earlier speech by psychology and Wilson School professor Daniel Oppenheimer.

“This project is a vivid example of the effectiveness, eventually, of a potential, of having a research project which is driven entirely by curiosity, and [I[ had no idea to start with that it had any practical application whatsoever,” Taylor said.

Taylor’s curiosity about butterfly wings led to conclusions that were used by Eli Lilly & Co., the company that developed Alimta.

But academic discovery doesn’t automatically turn into commercial success. Once Eli Lilly & Co. called with the news that they believed the compound Taylor worked on was an effective way to attack tumors, many experimental trials to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the drug had to take place before Alimta gained approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“You tiptoe into the treatment of patients with cancer drugs,” Taylor said. “You don’t know how to administer [the trials].”

After noting the problems of testing the drug on patients, Taylor added that “the development of this compound, all the way through from the initial research to the completion of the trial period and submission to the FDA, is about $1.6 to $2 billion.”

Taylor said that Alimta is now “the least toxic cancer drug known.” He added that Alimta is “positioned to be the world’s leading treatment for lung cancer.”