August 25, 2014
Searching for the fountain of youth in fats
PhD science student Colin Cortie is on a mission to understand the ageing process and ultimately stop it.
How would you feel about living to 150 or even 200 if you were fit and active until the end? 29-year-old UOW PhD student Colin Cortie is on a mission to make that a reality.
The South-African born biology student from UOW’s Lipid Research Centre is currently investigating how fats, or lipids, in our cells cause free radical damage, a process which is associated with cell damage and leads to ageing and a variety of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.
Colin, who recently won UOW’s Three Minute Thesis competition, which challenges research students to explain their often complicated thesis to a lay audience in three minutes or less, said oxygen is double-edged sword – it keeps us alive, but it also causes damage to our cells.
“I’m looking at the process of oxidative damage. It’s very common. It’s a consequence of breathing in oxygen and using that oxygen to produce energy. But it’s also associated with a lot of diseases and also with ageing,” he said.
Colin is one of the first scientists in the world to examine how oxidative damage is affecting human tissue.
“In the past, the focus of free radical damage has been on proteins or DNA because it has not always been appreciated that lipids have anything other than a structural role,” Colin said.
“However we now think lipids, which form the membranes around our cells, have much more to do with free radical damage than previously thought. In fact, some lipids are three to four times more susceptible to free radical damage than proteins or DNA,” he said.
Colin is also looking at how our diet, in particular the amount of omega-3 fats (which are commonly found in seafood) we consume, influences free radical damage and hence ageing.
“Bees can live for a surprising variety of ages. A worker bee will live a couple of months, but a queen bee could live for up to a year. So there is a huge difference in life span even within species and a lot of it seems to come down to omega-3 fats,” Colin said.
“In our lab, the consensus is that the more of these omega-3 fats you have, the more problems you have. Next door, [other researchers from the Lipid Research Centre are] looking at what happens when you don’t have enough omega-3s, which is generally associated with mental health and behavioural problems. It sounds like conflicting views, but in some ways it makes sense. We need just the right amount in order to be able to function properly.”
Colin said there are other researchers in his lab who are looking at lipids in the brain and how they affect diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
“The amount and types of lipids change quite a lot when people have certain diseases. So the question is then, is that just something that happens, or is that a leading cause”?
With a father who is a scientist, Colin has had an interest in science for as long as he can remember. After he submits his PhD in the coming months he hopes to continue his research into lipids.
“The more you learn about the world, I think the more you want to learn. I would like to take what I’ve learnt about lipids and use it to make the world a better place. I’d like to continue my research, looking at how lipids change with diet and what they could mean for people’s behaviour. To me that’s fascinating that you could help people live much longer just by changing what they eat.”
Colin will represent UOW at the Tans-Tasman final of the Three Minute Thesis Competition in Perth in November.
Media contact: Colin Cortie is available for interview. Please contact Elise Pitt, Media & PR Officer, +61 2 4221 3079, +61 422 959 953, epitt@uow.edu.au.