CONTENTS

Introduction
Human Skin Cancer
Sunscreen and Fabric
The Mouse Model of Cancer
Studies Using Skin Tissue
Drugs and Sunlight
Plant and Algae Growth
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography

Funding and Competition

One of the major problems and frustrations for Moore is that he has to travel to the United States in order to use an important piece of equipment which isn’t available in Australia. This particular equipment is able to look at reactions that take place in a very short time after the absorption of light. The process is called flash photolysis and it makes possible the examination of species which are formed initially when compounds absorb light. When an intense light is flashed on a sample, relatively high concentrations of reactive species are formed, and if they are examined quickly enough, that is within the time span of microseconds, the intermediate products of reaction can be identified, then it makes it much easier for the ultimate identification of the products. The lack of availability of this equipment locally means that Moore can’t carry out these kinds of tests on a regular basis.

“There is not enough funding,” he says. “I have been able to get research grants in the order of $100,000-$120,000 over several years but because this piece of equipment would only be used by our particular research group it hasn’t been deemed to be competitive. To spend that sort of money it usually has to be for something that is going to be used by a range of people and used most of the time. But within limitations we have a good range of equipment in this department which enables us to do the other major experiments.”

In the analytical area particularly there are available to him mass spectrometers and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers. They go hand in hand with the chromotographic equipment which is used to separate compounds. The normal process is to separate species by chromotography and then examine the separated species individually in a mass spectrometer and a magnetic resonance spectrometer. This provides the structural information which hopefully makes it possible to identify the compounds.

“The pharmaceutical industry is not very forthcoming in funding this sort of project because there are no regulatory requirements for it at this stage,” says Moore. “In Australia the industry is very limited because it is mostly owned by multinational companies. They are happy to take note of results and if deemed necessary they will put on the appropriate warnings. This is generally thought to be sufficient because all of these side affects can be circumvented by patients taking the proper precautions. But it remains an unfortunate fact that there is not a strong research base for pharmaceuticals in Australia. There is, however, discussion going on in the European Pharmacopoeia Commission suggesting that sugnlight testing may soon be required for drugs.”

At this stage Moore doesn’t think patients are being given enough warning about the types of side effects he is investigating. This could become a much more serious problem in the future if ozone depletion proceeds according to some of the predictions. If it does he suspects a lot of problems that will actually be caused by drugs will be masked by the general level of skin cancer increase. He thinks it is “probably one of those sleeping dogs that is not going to be disturbed.”

“So while the problem is going to be there, it may not be seen as a significant one. I am perhaps paraphrasing the sort of reaction I get to some of my research grant proposals. I am not being funded at the level that I would like. It is a very competitive situation with research grants. That is one of the frustrations I suppose. Not sufficient funding coming along to support the number of these projects I’d like to do nor to assist expansion inot different methods.”

Moore sees himself basically as an experimental scientist. “I enjoy working in the lab. I don’t so much enjoy all the paper work and other things that are required these days. I enjoy getting out in the lab and showing the research students what to do and working along side them if possible. I also like to have the opportunity of going overseas to conferences and to look at the work being done in other labs. That’s where I get a chance to learn different operations and techniques that I can put into practice here.”

Recently there has been as association established at the University of Sydney that should enable the collaboration of people working on similar sorts of problems. The different groups in the University complement each other and through discussions they can hopefully provide each other with suggestions and answers for different related problems. He finds it very interesting to go ‘cross disciplinary’. “At times you are wallowing outside your own field of expertise and trying to cope with something completely different to your training but it helps you to see applications of your own work and ensures that you are not working in a vacuum,” he says.

Moore finds it is important to interact with other people and not to be insular about his work. This is because there are a wide rang of options available and other people have a lot to contribute. He finds it is very rare to have people competing against one another scientifically despite the competition for research grants. “In the area of skin cancer research it is much more normal for people to be complementing one another than competing. This is a good thing because there is so much to be done, so many different approaches that can be used and in the end all aspects have to be put together.”