Interview with Dr. Danny Welch
 [Ginny Mason] Why did you choose cancer research?
I originally started working in the laboratory in an attempt to get a letter of recommendation for medical school. My only major criterion for working in the laboratory was that the project had to be clinically relevant. I had two primary options - research dealing with heart disease or research dealing with cancer. Based upon the context that I had as an undergraduate student, I was drawn to projects described by a graduate assistant who was interested in membrane biochemistry, but was applying his research to understand how cancers develop and metastasize. After working in the lab for about 6 months, I realized that I enjoyed discovery and that the potential to identify something brand-new was motivating.
Also motivating at that time was the news that one of my best friends from high school lost his father to metastatic melanoma to his brain. In addition, I was told that several of my relatives developed breast cancer. Together, these events steered me in the direction for doing cancer research.
[Ginny Mason] Was there something specific that piqued your interest in breast cancer and the metastatic process?
My major motivation was to participate in research that was clinically relevant. In the late 1970s, there was a growing interest in the process of metastasis since new models had been developed only a few years before. Although I did not specifically plan it, I was working in one of the top laboratories paving new ground in the area of metastasis. And, since I learned that my friend's dad had died of metastases, I had an additional motivation. And finally, some of my interest in breast cancer derived from the family connection with the disease.
[Ginny Mason] Tell us about one of your proudest moments during your career.
There are two incidents that come to mind. The first relates to our discovery of the KISS1 metastasis suppressor. I was leaving a career in the pharmaceutical industry and coming back to academia. During this time, I had been reading some literature from the late 1950s and noticed a pattern of chromosomal loss, i.e., the loss of genetic material occurred concomitant with the gain of metastatic potential. I approached a colleague at the University of North Carolina who I had met about 10 years earlier and who was doing a technique to introduce whole chromosomes into cells. I asked the scholar if he would be willing to teach me the technique so that I could test this "wacky" theory that restoration of a lost chromosome would result in reversal of the metastatic phenotype. Though he agreed that the strategy was very risky, he allowed me to work with him and his graduate student on nights and weekends. I am proud of this because no one thought the experiment would work out as well as it did.
The other "incident" of which I am most proud is actually many incidents. Any success that I have had as a scientist have been by the grace of God and by His providing me with motivated and intelligent trainees. Like raising children, I am proudest of the achievements of my students and postdoctoral fellows. Each is gone on to a successful career. But I'm most proud that, in each of their careers, they have maintained the highest levels of honor and integrity.
[Ginny Mason] What are you working on now?
Simply put, the projects in the laboratory are focused primarily on understanding how the 6 metastasis suppressors that we have cloned function. But perhaps the project I am most excited about currently relates to our recent discovery that genes encoded by the mitochondria can control metastasis. Like the chromosome transfer experiments above, the results were more startling than we could've ever imagined. If our current results hold up as we hope they will, we will have changed the entire field of genetics, let alone cancer/metastasis genetics.
[Ginny Mason] If you had access to unlimited funds, what would you want to do?
Exactly what we're currently doing, only with the resources to do it more rapidly.
[Ginny Mason] Love the answer to that question! Clearly Dr. Welch is doing important work that has the potential for significant patient impact. That's the kind of thinking and vision the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation values and wants in the Medical Advisory Board. As an organization who remains focused on research it is important to have a Medical Advisory Board that can provide guidance, expertise, and insight that will keep the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation moving in the right direction and funding research that will provide meaningful results for patients.
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