Professor Andy Choo has been with Murdoch Childrens since its
inception in 1986. He gives an insight into what the
Institute was like in the beginning, his most memorable moments,
what excites him about the future of medical research and what has
compelled him to spend a quarter of a century at the
Institute.
To say medical research and technology has come a long way since
my beginnings at Murdoch Childrens is an understatement. When I
first started, one could say that compared to what we have now in
the molecular biology field, scientific equipment was
primitive.
For example the machines for Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), a
technique to amplify one or a very few copies of a piece of DNA
into thousands to millions of copies of that DNA, first developed
in 1983 by American Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis, had just come
online and were clumsy; whereas slick fully automated PCR machines
are now a common and often indispensable equipment used in
biomedical research for a variety of applications.
In my first decade at the institute the work of late Professor
David Danks and Professor Dick Cotton on the common metabolic
disorder Phenylketonurea (PKU) led to the discovery of and new
treatment for clinically important variant forms of the disease.
David Danks' discovery of copper deficiency in Menkes syndrome
culminated in our cloning of the Menkes gene by Professor Julian
Mercer.
My own team initiated a new area of research investigating
disorders of chromosome instability and reported the first clinical
case leading to our discovery of a new phenomenon that
paradigm-changed our understanding of genome, evolution, and cancer
development.
Since then the institute has obviously grown a lot bigger. The
biggest change for the institute has been the shift from a
primarily genetics-based research institute to an institute with a
broad-based research focus on community and child health for which
genetics continues to play a major part of.
This shift of focus and the large size of the institute now
means there are more opportunities and greater critical mass to
help us sustain a stronger and rising competitive edge nationally
and internationally.
The reason I have been compelled to stay as long as I have with
the institute is because Murdoch Childrens has always been a
dynamic and progressive institute that provides many new challenges
and good opportunities for researchers to develop their research
and career. Being able to work with many talented and friendly
people has also been a big factor.
Looking forward there is a lot that excites and interests me
about the future of medical research. For instance, we now
have the machine to extract whole-genome data efficiently and the
bioinformatics capability to translate these data to help us
understand how genes work not in isolation but against the dynamic
informational backdrop of the whole cell and organism. Such
understanding will accelerate the finding of disease causes and
their treatments.
With its already strong and improving foundation, Murdoch
Childrens will continue to be a major global contributor to medical
research. It will continue to train first-rate researchers and
research leaders and influence health policy and practice.
Below: How times have changed - old scientific equipment used 25
years ago
Below: Dame Elisabeth Murdoch and Andy Choo
