With awareness campaigns galore attempting to spread knowledge about the most common sexually transmitted infection, the human papillomavirus, (HPV), the need for research into the disease is more than evident.
So when second-year Tufts medical student Robert Gaudet heard about an opportunity to participate in a biomedical research fellowship that would research a cure for HPV, he jumped at the chance.
Gaudet (LA '07), who majored in biology while he was an undergraduate at Tufts, spent this summer researching HPV through a project that was funded by the American Cancer Society's Betty Lea Stone Fellowship. The fellowship, which is offered to students who have completed their first year of medical school, funds 10 weeks of summer research with a professor.
Gaudet said that he decided to pursue the opportunity to join the fellowship when a professor in his department announced that there was a spot open on his research team.
"I'm very interested in biomedical research," Gaudet said. "I said, ‘I'm really interested in this, there's a position open; I'm going to go for it.'"
The extent of his research, however, was not limited to this 10 week period. Before the lab research started, Gaudet began studying and reading up on HPV.
"Leading up to the summer I spent one afternoon a week in the lab reading papers about the research that's already been done with HPV and cervical cancer to give myself a background," he said.
Once in the lab, Gaudet was faced with an extensive set of research challenges.
"The first part of my project was [to grow up] E. coli in this protein inhibitor that the professor had engineered; it was my job to grow that up and purify it," he said. "[The protein] inhibits an HPV protein that is vital in the HPV DNA replication, so the idea is you get our inhibitor protein to the cells, it binds the HPV protein, and inactivates it so the HPV DNA can't replicate."
After the initial growing process in which the inhibitor protein was engineered, Gaudet and his colleagues set out to see if the new technique would work in human tissue.
"We obtained a cell line that is infected with HPV 16, one of the more dangerous forms of HPV, [and] grew that up in 3-D culture," Gaudet said.
He and his research team, however, ran into an unexpected problem when the sample became contaminated.
"We were getting ready to apply the inhibitor [when] we got a little bit of contamination, so we started a second round and that's still finishing up right now," he said.
The goal of this research project has been to determine whether or not this protein inhibitor can be used clinically to cure HPV in its pre-cancerous stages.
"We want to see if in these cells that we're growing, if when you put the inhibitor onto them and it gets into the cells, if it's going to reverse some of the changes associated with the HPV infection, and the technique that we're using to grow the cells is in multiple layers so it mimics human skin … under a microscope it just looks like regular human skin," Gaudet said. "This particular inhibitor hasn't been tested in 3-D human skin culture, so this will be the first time investigating this inhibitor in HPV infected cell line grown that way."
For Gaudet and his colleagues, the summer months, and subsequently the fellowship, came to an end before the research could be completed. But the team has turned their work over to another lab whose researchers are continuing the work, and hopes the results of the test will come soon.
Gaudet, who has wanted to be a doctor since childhood, said that the medical profession is the perfect fit for him.
"I've always been interested in the sciences; it's always been my favorite thing," Gaudet said. "I'm just captivated with science in general, and I've also, just from my personal background, always been taught [that you should] use your gifts in the service of others … I love interacting with people, I love science — it just seemed like the path for me."
Gaudet has participated in various volunteer medical trips and other medical-based projects that continue to inspire him to pursue the medical profession.
"I did some volunteering in high school; I did an intro to health care professions program in high school and loved what I saw," he said.
During his time as an undergraduate at Tufts, Gaudet also participated in trips to the Dominican Republic with the Tufts Timmy Foundation Club.
"At Tufts, I did a few volunteer medical relief trips, I did some research a few summers and I realized biomedical science, medicine, that's what I want to do," he said.
Although he has a passion for research, Gaudet said that his true aspiration is to work with patients.
"I want to maintain some level of research … but I principally want to be a clinician while staying involved and advancing the sciences," he said. "I want to be involved in the research but my focus would be … interacting with people and working with them to fight disease."
