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Young Rutgers researcher blazes trail between plants and human health
The first year of the new millennium was a landmark year for genomics: An international consortium announced the completion of the draft sequence of the human genome; that announcement soon was followed by the completion of draft sequences for rice.
Additional sequencing would be needed to close gaps in these genomes, but the breakthroughs already had left a huge impression on Moul Dey, a molecular biologist finishing up a fellowship at the International Rice Research Institute in Manila at that time.
Dey’s desire to apply biotechnology to advancing human health remained strong during subsequent postdoctoral work at Cornell and Rutgers, and now her research – exploring the use of a compound found in many cruciferous vegetables to treat ulcerative colitis and prevent colon cancer – has attracted the attention of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Early this fall, Dey, a research associate in the Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment at Rutgers, was awarded a coveted Pathway to Independence award from the NIH to complete her research. The award, given for the first time this year, is an opportunity for biomedical researchers to attain tenure-track positions and lead their own research projects at an earlier stage in their careers. Each recipient receives almost $900,000 over five years, which covers their salary for the first two years and the full cost of their research proposal.
“The NIH budget is flat, so it is an important step that they would fund people like me,” Dey said. “I didn’t realize when I applied for the grant just how competitive it was, so I am very grateful to have been chosen.”
While conducting rice genomics research at Cornell, Dey became increasingly intrigued by the work of Ilya Raskin, whose Rutgers laboratory examines the medicinal potential of plants. Raskin’s laboratory serves as the headquarters of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups, a joint initiative of the NIH, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Researchers collect thousands of plant specimens from central Asia and around the world and screen them for new compounds that may have human health applications.
Dey corresponded with Raskin, whose enthusiasm for merging plant biotechnology with human health proved infectious. “Professor Raskin told me that pharmaceutical companies have spent billions of dollars on drug development based on synthetic chemistry, but that a high proportion of the really important discoveries have been inspired by plants,” Dey said. Raskin told her she could make significant contributions in this emerging area of plant-based therapeutics and that her strong biotech background would complement the analytical chemistry expertise in his group.
In 2004, Dey left a job at Cornell University to join Raskin’s lab. Here, Dey evaluates health-promoting potential of different plant extracts by exposing mammalian cells to each of them individually. She then examines the expression of genetic markers in these exposed cells using technology that she has optimized for her work with natural products.
When Moul heard about the new Pathway to Independence award, she chose to submit a proposal to study the possibility that upland cress seed extract could treat ulcerative colitis. In ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), chronic inflammation of the colon leads to the damage of intestinal walls. It also is a major precursor for colon cancer, which is among the top 10 causes of death in the United States. Coincidentally, IBD was a focus area of the NIH, which helped Dey to compete successfully.