Summary:
As you watch the video, listen to what Nikki has to say about the path she has taken in her career. She describes how she didn’t get into medicine and chose a science pathway that has led her towards medical research.
Captions:
Student: OK. When you left high school was the career path that you anticipated the same one that eventuated?
Dr Nikki Verrills: Not really no. When I left high school I knew I wanted to do something in science
and I knew I wanted to do something where I could be helping people.
And really all I knew about was going into the medical world and becoming a doctor and actually treating patients
and so I just thought well that’s the way I’ll go.
Um, and I didn’t get in straight from school into medicine but I found out that there were ways
of doing a science degree first and then moving over to medicine. So that was my plan.
I then I got to the end of my science degree and did a year of research and thought hang on
I like being in the lab here and so I worked in a research lab for another two years before deciding to do my PhD.
So, I think I get the best of both worlds - I’m still in the medical world, and hopefully my work
will lead to better treatments for patients but I get the flexibility and get to play around
with things in the lab and still do the science that a lot of treatings sort of doctors don’t get to do anymore.
So, so no, my career path definitely changed midstream, but certainly no regrets.
Student: OK
Summary:
Nikki explains that she has always been an animal lover so she has looked to generate most of her research in the laboratory. However, she indicates that medical research will always have some element of research involving animals, usually mice.
Captions:
Your work in the development of animal-free models related to drug resistance in
cancer cells has won you recognition such as the Voiceless Eureka Prize in 2007.
At what stage in your career did you realise the importance of free animal modelling?
Dr Nikki Verrills: I guess I think I knew all along, I’ve always been an animal lover.
When I was a really little kid I thought I probably wanted to be a vet but then I can’t stand the thought
of killing anything, so the thought of putting down an animal wasn’t, didn’t sit well with me.
Um, so I guess I always had that in the back of my mind and so as a medical researcher I’m always
looking for ways of being able to do the research that I want to do but to lessen the impact on animals.
Unfortunately, to get a drug all the way through to treating a human we do have to test them out
on animals and most of our work will go on to mouse studies before it will get into humans.
But we can use lots of different ways of growing human cells in a laboratory dish in the lab
to investigate these important questions without having to use animals.
So if we can minimise it as much as possible I think it’s really important.
Summary:
Nikki describes how we are moving towards alternative treatment for some cancer areas, for example in breast cancer treatment.
She explains that it is important to reduce the toxicity associated with the usual chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments and that this is where much of the work is being done.
Captions:
Currently breast cancer seems to be treated by an operation, radiotherapy or chemotherapy
or a combination of these. Are we near an alternative type of treatment?
Dr Nikki Verrills: In terms of alternatives, certainly not in the near future.
There are lots of new therapies coming out for breast cancer. Most of them are based on a chemotherapy type treatment.
So, I think we will get to a stage, particularly with breast cancer, and we’re there in some types of breast cancer.
Some women who are survivors with breast cancer will be on a particular drug for the rest of their life,
so it becomes like a chronic disease.
Where you’re taking a tablet like you would for blood pressure or something else forever.
And you can actually live with the disease. So, I think in terms of cancer, we will get to a stage where we can,
will chronically treat patients like that. And what’s really important to be able to that is to reduce the side effects.
So there’s a lot of research going on in trying to work out how we can specifically kill the cancer cells
without killing the normal cells, so that we can reduce the toxicity associated with chemotherapy.
So, at this stage it’s really - chemotherapy is sort of a general word for a whole bunch of different drugs
that we can use to try and fight cancer and certainly radiation.
I mean the toxicity associated with radiation is generally less than chemotherapy so that’s certainly a positive.
But I don’t think in the next few years there’ll be something completely alternative to either of those, unfortunately.
Summary:
Nikki describes her work as a member of a research team. She suggests that students find opportunities to be involved in the community or in sport as these help you build communication skills.
Captions:
You work as part of a research team, what makes teamwork effective
and what were you taught the skills for this to happen?
Dr Nikki Verrills: Yeah, team work’s really important in research.
It’s you know I work in, at the moment there’s three staff members who work closely with me
and they’re four or five research students plus we’ve always got undergraduate students coming into the lab
and learning about what we do and interacting with our lab members so team work’s really important.
I’m not quite sure where that really came from. I played a lot of sport when I was growing up and still do.
Netball and I’ve done a lot of dancing and so I think and just really community involvement.
I think it’s just working with people and it’s really important to have, I guess,
an open attitude and to be able to listen to other people.
Science is so much about taking in what other researchers have done and using that information
to come up with your own ideas, so you can’t do it on your own you have to do it as a team.
And I think it’s just being able to work with people and interact with people.
Summary:
Nikki explains that the incidence rate of cancer is increasing but that this in proportion to increases in the population and the fact we are living longer. Our detection methods are improving and we are able to treat people earlier.
Captions:
Unfortunately it appears that most people know someone whose life has been affected by cancer.
Are cancers in young women and children increasing? And, if so, what needs to be done to change this?
Dr Nikki Verrills: In terms of actual numbers the incidence rate of cancer is increasing
but it’s really in proportion with the aging population.
So in terms of young women and children the actual numbers of those people developing cancer really
aren’t increasing at all. There are some types of cancer where it appears that we’re seeing an increase
but quite often that’s due to either the fact that we’re living longer
and the longer you live the more chance you’ve got of developing cancer.
It’s also our detection methods are much better than they used to be.
So we can detect cancers whereas you know fifty years ago we may not have realised what it was
and a patient would die of a particular, we didn’t know what it was,
but we now know that would have been a type of cancer.
So I think we can detect it and we can detect it a lot earlier too.
You know there are a number of people who will die and on autopsy they’ll find
that that person actually had cancer. And you know thirty years ago we would never
have known that whereas today we can actually detect that really early and treat that,
so many people would have died of other reasons and had cancer and we would never have known.
Summary:
Nikki wasn’t the most studious of students but she indicates it was her teacher who saw her science ability and encouraged her to study science.
Captions:
Student: Was there a particular teacher or mentor who influenced your career path?
Dr Nikki Verrills: There’s been a number of people throughout my career I suppose. During high school.
I wasn’t the most studious student at school I have to admit. Particularly the early years.
I was having a bit too much fun with my friends but which is probably why I didn’t get straight into medicine.
But I did have a fantastic science teacher who really encouraged me and I think convinced me,
and particularly as a woman as well, because I remember in my science class there was about
four girls and the rest were boys.
And I had a female teacher who encouraged me a lot to go down the science path.
Then, I think, really it was my PhD supervisor, my mentor again who was a woman
and is extremely successful in cancer research and she’s one of my best mates now as well you know.
So, so there are certain people that are really important throughout your career and when you get a
fantastic mentor grab onto them and run with it because it really does make a difference.
Student: Yep.
Summary:
As you watch the video, listen to what Nikki advises about listening to yourself and choosing a future that is in keeping with your dreams.
Captions:
Student: What advice could you offer to young women considering a career in scientific research?
Dr Nikki Verrills: I think just being passionate about what it is you want to do and really having I guess a drive
and an ambition for where you want to be. Even if you don’t know exactly where it is that you want to end up.
If you enjoy science there are plenty of careers out there for you.
So don’t be put off, you know don’t think oh I have to go down this track or I have to go down this track.
There are so many avenues out there and if you, I guess I’d say if you’re not quite sure when you
first leave high school what it is you want to do but you quite like sciences do a broad sort of
undergraduate degree like a Bachelor of Science because you get a taste of a whole bunch of
different things and then you can sort of three or four years down the track you’ll realise which
parts of that really grab you and really interest you and you follow those through from there.
So, don’t be set in one idea thinking oh I’ve got to go down this career track be open to new things and to change.
Summary:
Nikki describes the research process and how she uses titanium dioxide as a means of identifying the differences in the protein in the cells.
Captions:
Student: How do you work with titanium dioxide in your research?
Dr Nikki Verrills: Yeah, that was very interesting. We use titanium dioxide in, basically we get the material
and we put it into these tiny little columns about this big and we take our cancer cells,
we break them open, we get all the proteins out of those cancer cells.
And we’re particularly interested in proteins that have a modification called phosphorylations
So its got this phosphorylation group on these protein and that phosphorylation binds
really, really tightly for some reason, we don’t really know why, to titanium dioxide.
So we use that as a way of concentrating or isolating those particular proteins so that we can then analyse them
further and we can see what’s different with those phosphor-proteins in the cancer cells versus the normal cells.
So we use it as a technique of isolating particular types of proteins from our cancer cells.
Summary:
Nikki describes how PP2A is there to protect cells from uncontrolled cell growth.
Captions:
Student: How does PP2A, a cause of cancer, help to destroy cancer cells?
Dr Nikki Verrills: Well in the normal situation PP2A is there to protect cells from uncontrolled cell growth.
So it works in a number of different pathways or functions within cells.
But really overall it’s role is to stop cells from continually dividing.
So when it gets to a certain stage we say: right those cells have had their life span
it’s time for you to stop growing we go back to our initial stem cells and start the cycle over again.
What happens in cancer when that PP2A is knocked out or mutated those cells then have the ability
to keep growing and keep dividing and that’s when we can get cancer.
And there are other genes like PP2A that we refer to as tumour suppresser genes.
So when they’re knocked out the cells have the ability to form tumours.
Student: Yup- that’s it.
Dr Nikki Verrills: Thanks.
Music: Music