Get to Know HudsonAlpha: K-T Varley
K-T Varley is a postdoctoral fellow at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. In Dr. Rick Myers’ lab, she focuses on cancer research, a subject that is extremely close to her heart. We invite you to “Get to Know” K-T Varley.
Q: What sparked your passion for science?
A: When I was a little girl my mother indulged my every curiosity. When I asked how tadpoles turned into frogs, she put a tadpole in an aquarium on the kitchen window so I could watch. When I asked about a strange insect that I found in the ditch in my front yard, she drove me and the bug, to the local science/natural history museum and they helped us identify it (it was a diving water beetle larva). We made paper mache volcanoes, silly putty, light bulbs and learned why the sky is blue and how fish gills worked.
Q: You currently do cancer research. How personal is this area of study?
A: Very. When I was 15 my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was a single mom and bravely faced the challenge of working through the grueling surgery and chemotherapy. It was a scary time. We were still as inquisitive as ever, but the types of questions we asked changed. We started asking questions like: Why do people get cancer? What types of treatments exist? Why does your hair fall out? After her initial surgery and treatment, her prognosis was good and she was able to return to teaching high school English, but the cancer returned before I left for college.
While I was getting my bachelor’s degree at Cornell University, two major scientific breakthroughs occurred. The human genome was sequenced and the first cancer drug designed to target a DNA mutation was FDA approved. I immersed myself in studying genetics, genomics and the computer science needed to analyze genome-scale data. My mother bravely continued to teach and battle breast cancer that recurred every few years.
Q: Where did you go for your graduate studies?
A: I chose to attend Washington University School of Medicine for graduate school to combine genomics, computational biology, and cancer research. As I conducted my research, the questions my mother and I wondered about became more refined and more pointed: Does cancer arise from a single mutant cell, or does the surrounding tissue have mutations too? Are the cells within a tumor different from each other? Do they respond differently to treatment? In the middle of my thesis research my mother’s breast cancer metastasized to her liver, and she passed away quickly. When I defended my Ph.D. thesis dissertation I was proud to be able to answer a few of the important questions we asked about cancer, and I had developed several tools that would help accelerate this research going forward.
Q: How did you wind up at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology?
A: When I began looking for postdoctoral fellowships I was thrilled to have an opportunity to conduct my research in Richard M. Myers’ laboratory at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. There are few places in the world that have the expertise and state-of-the-art technology to conduct this leading edge research in cancer genomics.
Q: What do you like best about working at HudsonAlpha?
A: I love the unique synergy between the non-profit research and the biotechnology companies. It was important to me to find an institution that could rapidly translate our discoveries in the lab into clinical tests that would be available to patients. Translating discoveries to commercial tests means that they become available more broadly; not just in the few large cancer research centers, but in community cancer centers, like the one that treated my mom.
Q: What are you working on in the Myers lab?
A: We are asking and answering some of the most compelling questions in cancer research: Are people exposed to chemicals in food or the environment that signal tumor growth? Are there DNA changes in a patient’s cancer that can be used to predict the aggressiveness of the disease and guide more stringent treatment? Can we match drugs to a patient’s specific cancer mutations to provide a more effective and personalized treatment? Are there new mutations for which we can design novel drugs?
Q: What does the future hold for you?
A: One year ago I moved into a cozy house in Madison with Dr. Jason Gertz, a fellow cancer researcher in the Myers lab, and our two dogs, and we are looking forward to sharing our discoveries with the Huntsville community and the world.
