Researcher David Kaplan

Below: the planned new home of the Brain Tumour Research Centre

Top talent drawn to McGill centre

DANIEL McCABE | Brain tumours don't attract the same kind of press attention as AIDS or breast cancer, but they pose a deadly threat to tens of thousands of North Americans each year nonetheless.

More Canadian infants and children die from brain tumours than from any other disease. Those who survive often pay a terrible price  the tumours themselves or the radiation treatments to combat them can seriously injure parts of the brain responsible for the development of cognitive and motor skills.

"Brain tumours are thought to be rare, but that really isn't the case," says neuroscientist Dr. David Kaplan. Doctors across North America diagnose more than 20,000 new cases of brain tumours each year. It's the fastest growing cancer among people over the age of 65. Another 60,000 patients discover that a cancer attacking another part of their body has moved into their brains. All told, 15,000 North Americans die annually from some form of brain tumour.

Kaplan is scientific director of a new research centre at the Montreal Neurological Institute that could play a major role in sharply reducing those numbers. The Brain Tumour Research Centre (BTRC) is currently the focal point of the MNI's fundraising and recruiting efforts.

"What we're doing here is unique," says Kaplan. "It's certainly the first centre of its kind in Canada. The idea is to make this a national resource."

A campaign began in June to attract $26 million for the BTRC and donations of $4 million ($3 million from the Molson Foundation alone) have already been pledged.

Several new researchers have been drawn to the MNI to work at the centre and ads have been placed in research publications around the world to recruit eight more scientists  four biotechno-logists, a neuropathologist, a neuro-oncologist, a neurosurgeon and a brain-imaging physicist.

Trained in Nobel-prize winner Harold Varmus's Harvard lab, the 40-something Kaplan is one of North America's most respected young brain researchers. The first recipient of the National Cancer Institute of Canada's $350,000 Harold E. Johns Award last year, Kaplan turned down offers from several other universities to come to Montreal and establish the BTRC. He says it wasn't a difficult decision.

"The Montreal Neurological Hospital is one of the foremost centres in the world for taking out brain tumours  the efforts of the neurosurgeons here are fantastic. The MNI is one of the strongest neuroscience centres in the world." With that expertise already in place  and with the prospect of adding several outstanding new researchers to it  Kaplan reasoned that he had a chance to be a part of something special.

He's not the only one who thinks so. "I was one of three Americans who came here around the same time," recalls Kaplan. "We all had good offers to go elsewhere and we all decided to come to Montreal  right before the last referendum. That says something."

In a pamphlet produced by the MNI to promote the centre, Rockefeller University president Torsten Wiesel, a Nobel laureate, lends the effort his support. "I heartily applaud the MNI's newest initiative. Brain tumour research has to a large extent been neglected, and this is a wonderful opportunity to combine the latest advances in basic neuroscience with astute clinical observations."

"There is a very good research network in Toronto dedicated to brain tumours, and we'll be working closely with them," says Kaplan. "But the scientists in Toronto are kind of spread out. The whole idea here is to bring all our expertise under one roof." A brand new roof.

A building will be constructed on the south side of McGill's football stadium to house the BTRC. Connected to the MNI, the new building will feature six research laboratories, a conference centre, a periodicals room and administrative offices.

In addition, a house has been bought at University and Pine as a facility for patients' families. "Hotels can be expensive  when someone in your family is ill, you've already got a lot to deal with. The families will be right across the street from the hospital and they'll be close to our doctors and social workers."

Kaplan gives much of the credit for the BTRC's promising start to MNI director Dr. Richard Murphy. "Before he came to McGill, the MNI was already very strong, but he's given it that extra push. He's brought in a new generation of extremely talented young faculty. And he's very good at explaining the need for the centre to potential donors."

The centre isn't fully established yet, but it already boasts some world-class expertise. A team headed by Dr. Douglas Arnold, from the MNI's Department of Electromyography, recently earned wide attention by coming up with new techniques for diagnosing brain tumours through the use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy  raising hopes that the need for brain biopsies might be eliminated one day.

Kaplan himself was a leader of the group that identified the Trk/nerve growth factor receptor  which is crucial for the development and survival of many nerve cells  and discovered proteins in cells that may be used by Trk to stop the growth of brain tumours. The finding could lead to new methods "for keeping damaged nerve cells alive while killing off tumours," says Kaplan.

"I kind of fell into that discovery by accident  it wasn't really my field at the time," he says. "Had I actually been in that field chasing after that discovery, I probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere because the literature was pointing in another direction completely." That experience helped shape his views about the sort of place he hopes the BTRC will become.

"I think if you bring together talented people from different areas, with different ideas, you can stumble onto exciting things. People from a variety of backgrounds look at a problem in different ways. I want this to be a centre where people test out ideas no one has ever thought of before."

He also wants the BTRC to be a place where basic scientists and clinicians enjoy a close working relationship. "We want to get promising new treatments and therapies from the bench to the bedside as quickly as possible." In fact, a clinician will serve as the co-director of the BTRC.

Kaplan believes that teamwork is essential to good science and that's another reason why he opted to work at the MNI.

"I think Canada is better suited to doing translational research than the U.S. is. Part of it is the Canadian character. Science in this country is a lot less ego-driven. A lot of people in the States are a little too focused on seeing their names in print in The New York Times or Science. It's much easier to bring people together here."

Kaplan says there is also a major disadvantage in Canada. "The research funding situation in this country is abysmal. The other G-7 countries all do a better job of supporting scientific research.

"That's the other reason Canadians are so good at working in teams," Kaplan notes wryly. "They can't afford to do research any other way."