Brown Biologist Robert Reenan Unlocks Epilepsy Through Fruit Flies
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Brown University's latest genetics study could remind a film buff of the terrifying 1958 Vincent Price film, The Fly or its gruesome 1986 remake. Both cautionary tales, they involve the accidental genetic combination of humans and flies.
Professor Robert Reenan is essentially doing just that, but his research in genetic mutations might in fact find a cure for epilepsy.
A few years ago, Reenan discovered a surprising similarity between the genes of fruit flies and of humans. He realized that if he could carefully and accurately create the human mutation for epilepsy in the fruit fly’s genes, he could have a huge number of test subjects for genetic research of the disease.
The perfect test subjects
Flies, Reenan says, are the perfect test subjects. “They are small, cheap, you can grow many thousands in a small area," he said. "And we can manipulate their genome almost at will.”
After Reenan succeeded in making fruit flies mimic human epilepsy, he decided to breed them, hoping that the epilepsy gene will contain to mutate. Now, he’s waiting for one the genes to suppress the seizures. This discovery could lead to a cure for the disease.
“There is a real beauty in this,” he said. “One of the tried and true methods in genetics is to find mutations, and we are just hoping for a suppression mutation.”
The EUREKA Prize
For his creative work, Reenan has received a new grant from NIH, the EUREKA Prize, to foster his continuing study. This $1.3 million grant started on April 1st, and will last for four years.
EUREKA stands for “Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration.” Certainly Reenan’s epileptic flies are both “exceptional and unconventional.” In a terrifying turn of events, he also has engineered the flies’ eyes to turn red instead of white, to indicate that they have the epilepsy gene. This will allow his team of researchers to easily identify flies with the mutation.
This immediately brought back visions of Jeff Goldblum slowly disintegrating into a petrifying, human-sized fly. In Reenan’s case, his manipulation of the fly gene could lead to a cure for the 50 million people worldwide who have epilepsy, and that’s nothing to swat at.
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