Getting to Know...Kevin FitzGerald

May 20, 2008

Kevin FitzGerald, S.J., research associate professor in the Division of Biochemistry and Pharmacology of the Department of Oncology, is no stranger to many members of the GUMC and research communities. He first came to the Hilltop to complete dual Ph.D.s in philosophy and in molecular genetics. But now he wears many hats each day on campus, conducting research in his lab in New Research Building, teaching classes in the bioethics master's program, and serving as the David Lauler Chair for Catholic Health Care Ethics at GUMC's Center for Clinical Bioethics. Also a Jesuit preist, he's known for his expertise in human genetic engineering, cloning, and stem cell research. With such a busy schedule, we were pleased that he had time to catch up with us in his lab about his research and life on campus.

So what sort of research are you working on right now?

We have a couple of big projects at the moment. The first project is our longest running project and it's on a family member of a group of genes called Mixed Lineage Leukemia (MLL). It’s best known for chromosome translocations that occur in infants that lead to leukemias, lymphomas, and myelodysplastic disorders, which usually have a poor prognosis. So right now, we're working on a family member, MLL2, to demonstrate that MLL2 seems to be involved in breast cancer, colon cancer, and perhaps kidney and testicular cancer. This family of proteins seem to be very similar in structure, but you get two very different results in how they interact with tumors.

What does that mean for a patient with one of these cancers?

I think it's going to have interesting diagnostic potential. When looking at MLL2 expression in certain tissues, we might be able to determine what sort of prognosis one might link to that expression. Is it going to be a better prognosis or worse? Then down the road, there might be a source of potential treatment. We're still trying to put together the puzzle, but eventually we may be able to find new avenues for treatment.

Tell me what else you're working on.

A much newer project is about natural products. We're looking at the products that people use around the world in traditional and other sorts of cultural medicine that haven’t been as rigorously analyzed by western biochemical techniques, but that still have been used for long periods of time and benefitted patients. So one idea has been to take the compounds, tear them apart, find the active ingredient, modify it, patent it and sell it as a drug.
But many times this doesn’t prove successful. Maybe it is the complexity of interactions within the natural compound itself that is the entity which bring about therapeutic benefits. We're trying to discover how we find those sorts of synergies.

Why is it so important to look at how natural products interact?

We’re moving toward personalized medicine and developing a systemized medicine approach, and the recognition of these unique synergies is extremely important in how we move ahead with personalized healthcare in the 21st century.

If I’m trying to find out what your particular health situation is I'm going to look at your genome, lifestyle, environment and so on. Similarly I think there's a value to approaching natural products in this way. Obviously, they were developed among a certain population in a certain environment for a certain purpose. So we are trying to come up with a way to become more sensitive to those interactions to treat individuals more effectively.

What do you do at the CCB?

The center provides ethics consultation and education. There are many new ethical considerations now because of the changes in the field of medicine with the recent advancements in genetic research. Georgetown's on the cutting edge of systems medicine, but we also want to be on the cutting edge of ethics, policy and regulation development, so we've been working with GUMC leadership to transition the Center into this role.

Sounds like you have your hands full!

Yes, but I like it. I'm in a unique place where I can conduct clinical research and also walk across campus and discuss the ethical perspective. I get to do two things I love.



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