5 minute read
Dr. Dale Laird
Dr. Dale W. Laird
Professor
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More about his research http://bit.ly/LairdLab
Contact Info
dale.laird@schulich.uwo.ca (519) 661-2111 Ext. 86827
How has your work evolved over the last year?
How “As we continue on with COVID, it's remains challenging to have a normal year. Inthe fall, I was going into the office every day for the most part. My laboratory continues to function within the restrictions that we have. It’s a bit challenging, but I think people are continuing to make the best of it. Also starting last September, I began a new position which is an Assistant Dean of Research Chairs and Awards. This is an administrative position for me. My portfolio is a new one, and it includes looking after what we call endowed research chairs. Schulich has about 42. These endowed chairs are in perpetuity and held by Faculty members. The revenues from these chairs areusedto either offset research costs or provide some salary support. My job is to oversee this program. The other part of my job is to encourage Schulich faculty to seek awards and honors, which not only brings recognition to the individuals, but it also brings recognition to the faculty as well as the University. It’s been good fun. I call it my ‘good news Dean’ job, because most times I'm calling up people to encourage them to go for something they will find personally rewarding and I participate by helping them shape their nomination packages. ”
What do you generally do on a daily basis?
“Right now, I'm probably dedicating the equivalent of one to two days a week to my Deanship role. My other duties essentially have to do with teaching, which tends to occur mostly in the fall. I coordinate two fourth-year cell biology courses. I participate in first year medical teaching, and I also engage in spot teaching for different courses where I do anywhere from one to four hours within a unit or as a small segment of somebody else's course. On the research side of things, I’m constantly trying to drive our laboratory’s research mission in gap junctions. I meet with my students and staff students and staff regularly as we strive to reach our research regularly as we strive to reach our research objectives so that we can move objectives so that we can move towards publishing papers. In my towards publishing papers. In my world publishing papers is something that we do all the time –we’re world publishing papers is something that we do all the time –constantly moving data through to the finish line. I also have a lot of university-level jobs. I'm onSenate, we’reconstantly moving data through to the finish line.I also have I sit on a couple of Senatesubcommittees, and I server on different search committees. As a lot of university-level jobs. I'm on Senate, I sit on a couple of a professor at Western, you end up having a lot of what we call “service duties”, which can be rather Senate subcommittees, and I server on different search time-consuming but also transient. In the last year I wrote a couple of reviews for major committees. As a professor at Western, you end up having a lot of journals that are pretty high profile. Those reviews took a lot of preparation time. Collectively, all of these activities keep cycling what we call “serviceyear after year.” duties”, which can be rather time-consuming but also transient. In the last year I wrote a couple of reviews for major journals that are pretty high profile. Those reviews took a lot of preparation20 time.Collectively, all of these activitieskeepcycling year after year.”
What are the major challenges you face in your research?
“From the science point of view, we work on a family of 21 genes and these genes produce 21 different connexins. It’salways challenging to sort out what all these connexinsdo.I'll give you an example fromthe skin, which is one of our areas of focus. We all express eight, nine, or even 10 connexins just within keratinocytes. That's great, but that's an incredibly complicated situation to analyze because it is not clear why do we need so many connexins that do essentially the same thing in a single cell type? What are they all doing? I'm a full believer that nature didn't make us with this kind of complexitywithout a reason. You always have towonder when you are analysing data if you’re getting information from a second, third or fourth keratinocyte connexin, which complicates the assays we use to interrogate the skin. If you try to take a reductionist perspective and look at one particular connexin at a time, then you're not really mimicking the in vivo or the in situ situation. I think the challenge in our field is knowing what goes through all these intercellular channels. Why do we need so many connexins? Many connexins in the skin can give you a genetically inherited disease when mutated.An interesting aspect ofinherited diseasesis they tend to be a little mysterious as to where and when disease will present, and the presentation of disease can vary from person to person. These are the challenging questions that we need to investigate. Of course, to do all of this, you always need research dollars. Even with research funds in hand, it is always challenging to design the most informative experiments to address the most pressing questions.”
“I'm optimistic that our field will develop one or moretherapeutics. I think one of the things that we've known about connexins for a long time is they have linkages to many diseases, from cancer to many inherited diseases. But there’s nothing on the marketplace that targets connexins. I'm optimistic that in the next 10 years, you will be able to pick up a drug from the pharmacy that is designed to target connexins. There are several clinical trials in the works. Many of these have gone to phase 3 targeting everything from chronic skin wounds to eye diseases. There’s a good chance that some of these new drugs will prove safe and effective. That’s pretty exciting for our research field becausewe've known for a long time that connexins are linked to so many different diseases, but it's never been totally clear if they're the best target. Evidence is mounting that they will be the right target for one or more diseases. The future is bright.”
