TO CRACK THE MAZE: SCIENCE IS ABOUT PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE, SAYS KHACHIGIAN.
By Jamie Pandaram
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
April 27 2006
Photo: Quentin Jones
Award-winning medical researcher Levon Khachigian compares his work
to a game of Pac-Man.
As a schoolboy, Levon Khachigian, born in Lebanon to Armenian parents,
stood out in the predominantly Anglo-Saxon North Shore suburb of
Naremburn. “I obviously spoke Armenian at home, and took to school a
lunch of Lebanese bread containing all sorts of exotic delicacies,”
he says.
A leading member of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University
of NSW, Professor Khachigian now turns heads by making medical
discoveries.
The 42-year-old violin enthusiast specialises in heart-related
illnesses, working to find links that could uncover the mysteries
of diseases.
In March, his team uncovered a complex network of molecules that
use multiplying “middle men”, or transcription factors, to block
arteries. The find was music to the medical world’s ears, raising
the possibility of preventing common heart diseases.
Khachigian hopes to soon unveil – once testing is complete – a drug
that could be used to treat heart attacks, prevent solid tumour
growths and potentially treat common inflammatory diseases.
“It has the potential to be a super drug … that can be applied to
multiple disease settings,” he says.
It is for work such as this that Khachigian received the Commonwealth
Health Minister’s Award for Medical Research and the University of
NSW Eureka Prize for Scientific Research, both in 2003.
He knows that accolades only recognise what he has done, while millions
of people stand to benefit by what he can do next. “In Australia,
one person dies every 10 minutes from a heart disease.
Clearly more research needs to be done to try and improve the quality
of life for people, to keep them out of our hospitals and having a
long and productive life.
“I felt that heart research – or cardiovascular research – had multiple
benefits that would spruce up not only our health and productivity
but also our economy.”
His parents migrated to Sydney and started the first Protestant church
in Naremburn in 1966. The family is still heavily involved with the
parish, which has moved to Ryde; Khachigian plays the violin and his
mother the piano, while his father preaches.
“My parents were missionaries in the Middle East in the 1960s and
they were doing the Lebanon, Syria and Jordan route as part of their
Christian outreach … and they had me while they were in Beirut.
“It was towards the end of year 9 that I became interested in science
because I was encouraged to ask questions. I jumped up to 10S1 [the
top science class in year 10] because I was given the opportunity to
ask questions, and that curiosity never left me. I got into science
to do research. It was a means to an end.”
After a science degree and a PhD, Khachigian was awarded a doctorate
of science in vascular pathobiology.
He is also the president of the Australian Society of Medical Research,
a position he is using to lobby for more funding.
“If we invest in health research, the Australian economy and our
social fabric benefits. It is an investment that has few parallels.”
But like all scientists, he knows only too well the “one step forward,
two steps back” method.
“It is kind of like Pac-Man. You go down a path eating away at certain
questions, and there comes a certain point where you know you’re not
yielding productive answers, so you basically come out of that avenue
and press on and ask different questions or tackle another problem.
“Science is about patience teamed with persistence, and flavoured by
wisdom to know what is likely to yield productive results and what
will not.
“I feel enormously privileged to be a part of the family of health
and medical research in this country.”
Photo:
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