Dad Enlists Kids' Help Cloning DNA: Henry Charlier Hopes His Research Will Produce New Cancer Treatm

Mar 27, 01:23 PM

Current Headlines: By Anne Wallace Allen, The Idaho Statesman, Boise

Mar. 27--Henry Charlier, an associate professor in Boise State University's department of chemistry and biochemistry, was in third grade when he found out what he wanted to do for a living.

"I looked into a microscope ... and wanted to be involved in molecular (biology) and microbiology," he said.

Now Charlier's carrying out research that he hopes will lead to better cancer treatment. This week, his son Max, a third-grader at Garfield Elementary School, and friend Dash Dale, a fifth-grader in the gifted program at Hillside Junior High, joined him in the lab as he cloned a gene.

"I needed a few genes, and I was going to be in the lab anyway, so I invited these guys," Charlier said. He will use the cloned material in his research.

Charlier, who has been at Boise State since 2000, has long tried to involve elementary-age students in his work at the lab.

He thinks showing students science when they're young helps them develop an interest in it as they reach higher grades.

He often dons his tie-dyed lab coat to appear in classrooms around the Treasure Valley as Dr. Picklestein, a scientist who can make a pickle explode and carry out other important research.

"Working with the kids is actually very important to the mission of the university," he said. "Who knows what kind of influence this could have in their careers?"

Tuesday, Charlier showed Max and Dash how to draw tiny amounts of water out of a beaker onto a very exact scale. The tool the boys used, a pipette, can measure one-millionth of a liter.

"The boys practiced squeezing 12 microliters -- 12 millionths of a liter -- into a cup on the scale and seeing how much it weighed.

"We're going to be using very small amounts of material, and we need to be accurate," Charlier told them. "If we don't measure properly, the (chemical) reaction won't work very well."

When college students enter his lab for the first time, he added, "I have them weigh water and use these instruments."

Charlier is cloning the gene that contains the plans for building the protein carbonyl reductase, which can cause causes one type of chemotherapy drug to damage a patient's heart.

The work Charlier is doing with Dash and Max replicating DNA is not hard to do, he said: It's been common in labs around the country for decades. It has nothing to do, he noted, with the work on cloning animals that produced Dolly the Sheep in Britain.

"We use bacteria that has been weakened, so there's really no chance of survival outside of a lab setting," he said. And it's quite simple, unlike cloning an organism. It's like making macaroni and cheese."

But Charlier hopes research on the cloned genes will produce a new cancer treatment that can be used without risk to the patient's heart.

A new treatment could be licensed by Boise State and sold to a drug company -- a goal that's in line with President Bob Kustra's aim of stimulating research at Boise State.

Charlier said he lost an uncle to cancer in sixth grade and has wanted to research cancer therapies ever since.

Dash said he enjoyed being in the lab and would welcome a chance to be on hand if Charlier can create a better cancer therapy.

"I like making things that might help people in the future," he said.

Contact reporter Anne Wallace Allen at aallen@idahostatesman.com or 377-6433.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Idaho Statesman, Boise

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