Student opens door to new diagnosis and early treatment of child heart disease
April 22, 2010 by admin
Greater Toronto SABC finalist Colin Carter has long been intrigued by the human immune system. And this year’s competition gave him the opportunity to conduct leading-edge research at Toronto’s famed Hospital for Sick Children on a challenging auto-immune disease called Kawasaki Disease.
In auto-immune diseases, the body attacks itself because it can’t tell the difference between harmful invaders and its own cells.
Kawasaki Disease (also known as lymph node syndrome) causes a massive inflammation around the blood vessels near the heart in children under age five and can cause heart attacks.
Named for the Japanese researcher who first described it in 1967, causes of the disease is not well understood. Colin worked with Dr. Rae Yeung, a University of Toronto Associate Professor of Pediatrics, to tease out some answers.
“We believe Kawasaki Disease is caused by a super-antigen, a molecule that triggers an extreme immune response,” says the Grade 12 student at Northern Secondary School. Such powerful antigens attack viruses and other pathogens but are supposed to die before causing harm to the body. Colin’s project tested and verified that a specific molecule called the TLR2 ligand may be reactivating the super-antigen, provoking the dangerous immune response Kawasaki Disease.
“(Colin’s) findings help define the signaling pathway involved in immune activation and cross-talk between the innate and adaptive immune response,” says Dr. Yeung. In addition Colin improved the lab’s cell screening system making it faster and “will speed the pace of discovery,” he says.
Colin, who undertook the research project on his own time after school and on weekends, says “the opportunity to present the work I had done in the past two years has been really exhilarating.”
And the SABC experience confirmed a passion for scientific research. “The stimulating work environment, sense of community, and that fact that research is the crux behind keeping people alive … these are all thing that contribute to that interest and passion.”
