Speaker: Michael Metzger, PhD., Pacific Northwest Research Institute
Sponsor: NWFSC Jam Seminars; For additional information about the NWFSC Monster Seminar JAM series, please contact Vicky.Krikelas@noaa.gov.
Abstract: Cancer is normally an evolutionary dead-end—neoplastic cells that arise and evolve within an organism either regress or they kill their host, and the death of the host marks the death of the cancer lineage. However, in some cases, neoplastic cells develop the ability to spread from individual to individual, turning from conventional cancers into clonal contagious cancer lineages. The natural transmission of cancer cells has been observed in two mammals (Tasmanian devils and dogs), and we have found that a leukemia-like disease in soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria) is due to the horizontal spread of a clonal cancer lineage. We also analyzed mussels (Mytilus trossulus), cockles (Cerastoderma edule), and carpet shell clams (Polititapes aureus) and found that the neoplasias in all three of these species are due to independent transmissible cancer lineages. These results show that this type of cancer transmission is far more widespread than previously believed, especially in the marine environment.
BIO: Michael Metzger earned a master’s degree in epidemiology and a PhD in molecular and cellular biology at the University of Washington. He completed a short postdoctoral fellowship in basic science at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Stephan Goff’s lab at Columbia University — where he first identified transmissible cancer in clams. He joined the Pacific Northwest Research Institute as an assistant investigator in 2018, and he is an affiliate faculty member of the University of Washington’s Department of Genome Sciences.
RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS (REVIEW) Metzger MJ, Goff SP. A Sixth Modality of Infectious Disease: Contagious Cancer from Devils to Clams and Beyond. PLoS pathogens. 2016; 12(10):e1005904.
Metzger MJ, Villalba A, Carballal MJ, Iglesias D, Sherry J, Reinisch C, Muttray AF, Baldwin SA, Goff SP. Widespread transmission of independent cancer lineages within multiple bivalve species. Nature. 2016; 534(7609):705-9.
Metzger MJ, Reinisch C, Sherry J, Goff SP. Horizontal transmission of clonal cancer cells causes leukemia in soft-shell clams. Cell. 2015; 161(2):255-63.
