Dr. Jason Moffat is building a library to help scientists better understand cancer, but rather than books, the catalogue is filled with a set of compounds that can shut down any individual gene using a scientific technique called ribonucleic acid interference, or RNAi.

RNAi is a mechanism for regulation of gene expression and can be used to “switch off” a particular gene. RNAi can also be used for large-scale screens designed to systematically shut down individual genes in a cell, shedding light on which components are necessary for a particular process, such as cell division.

This is important in cancer research because it gives scientists the ability to understand what a gene does by suppressing its function. Since cancer occurs when normal cellular processes malfunction, RNAi is becoming an essential tool in understanding its causes.

“The really important aspect of my work is its versatility, since RNAi can be applied to a wide range of cell lines and in vivo models. Essentially, you can use RNAi for any molecular study that measures the activity of a process in a living organism,” he explains.

Moffat graduated from Queen’s University with a B.Sc.H. in Biochemistry and from the University of Toronto with a PhD in Molecular Genetics. As a post doctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, he and his colleagues developed a library that can shut down any gene in the human and mouse genomes.

As a professor at the University of Toronto, Moffat will collaborate with OICR to develop the library and apply it to high-throughput, high-content screens. High-content screening is a new drug discovery method that uses cells as a living test-tube by combining cell biology with new molecular tools such as high resolution microscopy and robotic handling. High-throughput screening refers to techniques that allow large numbers of samples to be processed in short time-frames. When combined, the methods allow scientists to conduct wider analyses than are possible using traditional research methods, which rely on laboratory technicians to prepare samples one by one.

“Dr. Moffat is building a powerful platform that will allow our scientists to conduct new, cutting-edge studies without leaving the province,” says Dr. Tom Hudson, President and Scientific Director of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, who is also a former Broad Institute researcher. “RNAi has applications in a wide range of diseases, making Dr. Moffat a great asset to the entire medical research community. We are very pleased that he has decided to focus a large part of his efforts on cancer.”

The laboratory will function like a platform, meaning it will help scientists apply RNAi research techniques to their own projects. Moffat’s approach is to expose these scientists to his area of expertise by involving them in the day-to-day experiments that are needed to conduct RNAi-based analysis.

“The laboratory is not going to be a service for researchers, but rather a collaborative environment where they can come and investigate larger questions by using the tools we develop,” Moffat explains. “This model works well because it gives researchers an opportunity to use new technologies in an expert setting without having to set up complicated infrastructure.