Dr. Michèl Schummer, Ph.D.
Scientist
MacroGenics


DWT is pleased to feature Michèl Schummer, Ph.D. as our Life Sciences Inventor of the Month. Dr. Schummer has crossed the borders of traditional biology to unite technology development with cancer research. As a result of his efforts, he has been instrumental in the development of a diagnostic tool that has the potential to save numerous women's lives.

Dr. Schummer did his graduate work at the Universities of Heidelberg, Hamburg and Genève, and earned a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Heidelberg. He then took a position as a trainee in the Public Relations office of the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg where he wrote for the magazine Einblick and worked to create a computer database for journalists. In 1995, he came to Seattle to begin a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Leroy Hood at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB). He initially worked on stem cells but switched to cancer research after a few months. While one aspect of his research project focused on the discovery of markers for ovarian tumors that could be used as diagnostic tools for screening patients, the other related to technology development.

As a senior scientist at ISB, Dr. Schummer was instrumental in the development of DNA microarrays, a powerful new technology that enables scientists to measure the interactions between thousands of genes simultaneously in a single experiment. DNA microarrays provide new approaches to cancer research because they enable the observation of differences between the pattern of gene expression of a cancer cell and that of a normal cell. In addition, Dr. Schummer was involved in developing analytic methods to process the complex data obtained from microarrays. The information obtained from the microarrays has elucidated many of the cellular pathways that are affected by cancer as well as identified proteins that serve as markers for cancer cells.

An important change in direction and focus for Dr. Schummer came when he was contacted by Saul Rivkin, M.D., founder of the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention, detection, and treatment of ovarian cancer. The Marsha Rivkin center was started in 1994 by Dr. Rivkin, a medical oncologist at Swedish Medical Center and member physician of the Swedish Cancer Institute, in honor of his wife, Marsha Rivkin, who died of ovarian cancer. Among American women, ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer, and it is the leading cause of death from all types of gynecologic cancer. This poses problems to medical practitioners because the primary way to detect it is by biopsy, a method not suitable for diagnostic screens due to its invasiveness. As a result, there has been continued interest in the production of new non-invasive diagnostic tools sensitive enough to detect ovarian tumors as they are forming.

After meeting Dr. Rivkin and giving an early-morning seminar to his research group, Dr. Schummer formed collaborations with members of Pacific Ovarian Cancer Research Consortium and the Marsha Rivkin Center and began using the newly-developed DNA microarray technology to identify biomarkers for ovarian cancer. However, genetic material harvested from tumor cells and analyzed by microarrays is a transient "snapshot" of the cell's genetic repertoire that rapidly changes once the tissue is removed from the patient. In order to generate reliable data using the inherently-sensitive DNA microarrays with these unstable samples, it was necessary for Dr. Schummer and Dr. Rivkin to work out a procedure for handling tissue samples to minimize variability in age, purity and composition. Together, they developed a standard protocol that involves the presence of a specially-trained researcher in the operating room while the ovaries are being surgically removed. This protocol has allowed Dr. Schummer to generate reproducible experimental data that has been the foundation of a new approach to cancer research.

With two critical components in place — a standardized sampling procedure and the newly-developed technology to analyze the samples — Dr. Schummer began screening tissue from ovarian cancer patients to identify genes whose expression was altered relative to normal cells. His screens identified a number of interesting genes, but he chose initially to pursue a gene designated HE4, a gene that encodes a protein known to be involved in the maturation of sperm cells. The HE4 protein was found to be an excellent biomarker for ovarian cancer because it's expressed early in tumor formation, and also is detectable in the bloodstream. Dr. Schummer has since identified a number of other genes that exhibit altered expression in ovarian cancer cells, which may later prove to be useful as diagnostic tools. As a result of his work, a diagnostic test kit capable of sensing the HE4 protein in serum is the subject of a recently-filed patent application.

Dr. Schummer's collaborations with Pacific Ovarian Cancer Research Consortium and the Marsha Rivkin Center have added a new dimension to his research: it gave him the opportunity to play a role in the lives of women who were battling ovarian cancer. He spent a great deal of time talking to the patients, explaining his research and the implications of the acquired data. Dr. Schummer believes both he and the patients have grown as a result of this process.

While Dr. Schummer continues to use innovative techniques to identify proteins that serve as markers for cancer cells, his focus has shifted from diagnostics, where the goal is to detect markers in serum, to therapeutics, where the goal is to identify proteins that remain on tumor cells and ultimately to use these proteins to intervene in pathways that lead to tumor formation. He currently is a scientist at MacroGenics, a company that specializes in immunotherapeutics for cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders.

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