CSM Symposium Preview: Dr. Terry Pearson

For the past 35 years, Pearson has studied tropical diseases; specifically, African sleeping sickness. Moving away from being a full-time academic researcher, Pearson has switched gears to focus on disease diagnosis and has now immersed himself in the entrepreneurial world as co-founder of SISCAPA Assays Technologies, Inc.

A big problem in modern medicine is that many drugs work on some patients but not on others. There’s also a rise in the number of adverse drug reactions and drug-related deaths in the United States and in Canada. How do we ensure that the drug prescribed to a patient will be the most effective option?

Pearson has found a possible solution to this issue. First, you need to establish a baseline for your own set of unique biomarkers, molecules that indicate health or disease. By tracking a set of biomarkers in your blood over time, you’ll know if any biomarkers deviate outside of your own personal range.

Biomarkers can be used diagnostically to alert clinicians if a disease, such as cancer, is progressing. Although there have been over 4,000 potential cancer biomarkers identified to date, there are only a few markers that are used as diagnostics. Pearson wants to unlock the potential of the rest of these cancer biomarkers using antibody-based mass spectrometry, a technique used to identify proteins, peptides or biomarkers in a blood or tissue sample.

Based in Victoria, B.C. Pearson has access to a world-class mass spectrometry facility at the University of Victoria’s Genome British Columbia Proteomics Centre. By using mass spectrometry, Pearson is able to screen for at least 20 biomarkers at once in a patient.

In his early career, Pearson worked as a staff scientist at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England with Georges Kohler and Cesar Milstein to develop the monoclonal antibody. This work by Kohler and Milstein received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1984. Pearson’s lab at the University of Victoria has continued to be at the forefront of developing antibody-based techniques ever since.

Now with SISCAPA, Pearson is taking antibody-based diagnostics to the next level.

For more information, watch Pearson’s TEDx Talk.

Rachel Kratofil is a PhD candidate in the Department of Immunology and CSM Symposium committee chair.