Peter (Pete) Tonge, pdf - (tonge<at>lunenfeld.ca)
My initial research interests and PhD focused on human embryonic stem cell and embryonal carcinoma cell research. Once my PhD was completed I decided to leave England to join one of the few global hubs for stem cell research, Toronto. Since joining Dr Nagy’s research team I have become involved in projects that are primarily mouse ES and IPS based. It has been very satisfying to utilize the mouse as a model organism for stem cell research and readily study the developmental potential of cells in the developing mouse embryo.
The Nagy lab has pioneered the exploitation of the PiggyBac DNA transposon system to generate human and mouse iPS cell lines (Woltjen et al 2009), circumventing the use of viral based cell transfection. The PiggyBac transposon is an important alternative to viral transfection as transposons have the ability to integrate into the mammalian genome at high frequency. In the lab we now have a number of research projects that are using sophisticated genetic systems to investigate the process of reprogramming somatic cells to an IPS state.
The reprogramming of somatic cells to a pluripotent state is a process that takes approximately three weeks to accomplish. We are employing next generation sequencing to generate novel datasets that will provide new insights in to the different stages that cells progress through during reprogramming. Processing and interpreting these large sequencing datasets is a challenge that I am now immersed in, BUT thoroughly enjoying.
As a sideline project, I have been working with the sleeping beauty transposon and have developed a highly efficient system for random activation of gene expression, aka RAGE. RAGE is a powerful genetic tool to screen the genome for gene discovery research, enabling the identification of novel genes that are under-represented in cDNA libraries.