After significant breakthrough, J’can scientist not letting up on cancer research
Published:Tuesday | April 2, 2024 | 12:06 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
Dr Simone Badal McCreath, the Jamaican scientist chosen among 25 others worldwide for the inaugural Rising Scholars: Breast Cancer programme, is intent on creating more cancer cell lines for black people in the fight against prostate and breast cancer.
Badal McCreath created history by leading a team at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, in creating the first cancer cell line from the Caribbean in 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, from an African-Caribbean patient after overcoming senescence (aging of cells) and the presence of fibroblasts through their novel protocol called the “Valentine Effect’. The Valentine Effect is named after her graduate student assistant at the time, Henkel Valentine, and the cell line was created inside a lab she set up at UWI, Mona, with a grant from the National Health Fund (NHF).
“We’ve done a major feat. They told us we couldn’t do it. We can break now? Absolutely not,” Badal McCreath said with a smile.
What prompted her to conduct this particular type of research was the fact that over the decades, only cell lines for Caucasians have been available to researchers, which is not ideal for black people in the long run.
To help Jamaicans and other black ethnic nations better fight and treat prostate and breast cancer, the scientist believes Jamaica needs to create more cell lines, apply, and improve the protocols she used to develop the first Caribbean cell line, ACRJ-PC28.
She has explored the anti-cancer properties of natural products, leading to the development of the first pre-clinical models consisting of cell lines, specifically for prostate cancer for the Caribbean Diaspora.
Her pioneering work has been instrumental in catalysing the development of cancer drugs that are more suitable to the genetic make-up of the black population, which addresses a critical gap of current cancer treatment.
On March 21, while presenting her work at the Victoria Mutual (VM) Group Lecture Series, held under the theme ‘Leaving No Cell Behind: Levelling the Playing Field for Black People with Cancer’, the luminary in the field of biochemistry and cancer research expressed her concerns.
“Prostate and breast cancers are primary concerns for us as black people, and so I zoned in on those two cancers in terms of incidence and mortality rates … so the next question is, how does this translate to treatment?” Badal McCreath said.
“When you look at the treatments that are developed, the treatments are more effective in a white person with cancer when you compare that same type of cancer in a black person. More effective, and hence there are incidence and mortality rates that are on the decline [among Caucasians] while our incidence and mortality rates in the Caribbean and in Africa are on the rise,” she said.
Her search has led to four review papers. Her findings indicate that more than 98 per cent of prostate cancer cell lines available to researchers are Caucasian, more than 90 per cent of breast cancer cell lines available to researchers are Caucasian in origin, clinical trial enrolment for breast and prostate cancer drugs are for Caucasians, and anticancer drugs are more effective in whites than blacks.
“So almost none for blacks,” she said.
Imbalance in drug efficacy
She stressed that she was not saying that societal impact does not play a role, but the methodology that is now in place is biased or skewed towards one ethnic group, leading to an imbalance in the efficacy of the drugs.
After getting NHF’s grant of $14.5 million to do animal research from 2015-2016, this new concern caused her to detour, create a new plan, identify a lab space, outfit the lab, and conduct research on two cell culture facilities – FMSTRC and NPI. She started with black men suffering from prostate cancer.
After starting and seeking overseas consultation, Badal McCreath was discouraged but pressed on.
“When I was formulating the team, I reached out to two persons overseas who had knowledge of the prostate cancer cell line development work, and one person said to me, ‘Simone, if I were you, I wouldn’t do it. I’ve tried this cell line development and it did not work for me. I’ve tried for years, wasted time [and] money, energy doing work. You’re trying this from a resort, underdeveloped community. This is going to be difficult’. It’s challenging, but we need to find a way to rectify the challenge,” Badal McCreath said.
It took her one and a half years on Sample 13 before she saw her first primary explants results with viable cells.
She and her team are also publishers of the article ‘Immortalization of human primary prostate epithelial cells via CRISPR inactivation of the CDKN2A locus and expression of telomerase’.
In February 2020, when the world was on the brink of a pandemic, they created the first cell line from the Caribbean after five years of work.
Badal McCreath is an award-winning scientist whose groundbreaking work has paved new paths in fighting cancer, particularly for black women and men.
Taking on with breast cancer and prostate cancer, her journey is one taken by very few but one taken with grit and determination.
She completed her PhD in record time – two and a half years – and the quality of her research project was said to stand up to scrutiny anywhere globally.
She will also present at the annual AACR Conference 2024.
Badal McCreath pursued an MBBS in Surgery and a PhD and MBA at Cambridge University. Her PhD focused on chemo prevention and anti-cancer.