Jerry Adams,
Born: 17 June 1940, Columbus, Georgia, USA
During the 1960s, two young scientists in the Cambridge
laboratories of Nobel Laureates Francis Crick
and Fred Sanger met and began a partnership that was to have profound
implications for the study of immunology, molecular genetics and the
development of cancer.
Suzanne Cory was raised in Melbourne. Impressive
undergraduate work at the University
of Melbourne garnered her a scholarship to undertake a PhD at
Cambridge, where she met her future husband and research collaborator,
Jerry Adams. Adams had just arrived from Harvard, where he had completed
a PhD under
James Watson, Crick's Nobel Laureate co-winner, who deemed Adams
one of his most promising students.
After postdoctoral research at the University of Geneva,
Cory and Adams returned to Melbourne in 1971, and joined the
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. They initially
attacked a burning fundamental question in immunology - namely, how
the body makes the myriad antibodies required to fight diverse pathogens.
To tackle this question, Cory and Adams exploited the emerging technology
of genetic engineering, and in 1976 isolated antibody genes, the first
mammalian genes to be cloned in Australia. Their studies revealed
the crucial fact that antibody genes are inherited as bits and pieces
that can recombine in countless ways to generate the great diversity
of antibodies by which the body fights infection.
In 1981, Cory and Adams were emboldened to study
the genetic accidents that can occur during cell division and thus
lead to cancer. Their team discovered the mutated gene that triggered
Burkitt's lymphoma, a cancer of antibody-producing cells. To prove
that the aberrant gene caused malignancy, the altered gene was injected
into mouse eggs. Remarkably, the mice that developed from these eggs
and their progeny almost invariably developed lymphoma.
This seminal work by Adams, Cory and colleague
Alan Harris not only unequivocally proved the root cause of Burkitt's
lymphoma but also helped to establish a new, vital tool for cancer
research ñ cancer-prone, or "transgenic" mice which are
now used by researchers worldwide to study how cancer develops and
to test new cancer therapies.
Later, their laboratory made yet another landmark
contribution, and shed entirely new light on the puzzle of cancer
development. It had been thought that cancer occurred only when cells
over-multiplied. Their team, however, identified a gene that, rather
than enhancing the multiplication of cells, allowed cells to outlive
their normal lifespan and to survive under normally lethal conditions.
Adams, Cory and a young colleague,
David
Vaux, were studying a gene (
bcl-2)
implicated as causing a common human lymphoma. Unexpectedly, they
found that the gene allowed cells to survive under hostile conditions
but not to proliferate. For the first time, cancer had been linked
to the genetic control of cell death. Together with another talented
colleague, Andreas Strasser, they went on to show that blockage of
cell death not only contributes to cancer, but also protects tumour
cells from radiation and chemotherapy, raising exciting possibilities
for future development of cancer therapies. Stimulated by these discoveries,
thousands of researchers are now exploring the processes that control
the cell's suicide program, termed 'apoptosis'.
The breakthroughs in molecular genetics by Suzanne
Cory and Jerry Adams have had major impacts on the understanding of
immunology and the development of cancer, and have opened new avenues
for researchers worldwide to tackle some of the most pressing questions
in biomedical research. Their achievements have been recognized by
the election of both to the
Australian Academy of Science and to the
Royal Society. In 1998, Cory was a joint winner of the Australia
Prize, which honours outstanding specific achievement promoting
human welfare in a selected area of science, and of the Mott Prize
from the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, for "the
most outstanding recent contribution related to the cause or ultimate
prevention of cancer". Last year, she became a Companion of the
Order of Australia (AC).
Suzanne Cory is now the fifth - and first woman
- Director of the Walter and Eliza
Hall Institute of Medical Research, and Jerry Adams is the joint
Head (with Cory) of its
Molecular Genetics of Cancer Division. They and their talented
colleagues continue their quest to expose the molecular roots of cancer.
