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Progress in Research Summer 2010 Progress in Research very dark prognosis – how could there be any progress at all if there wasn’t even any- one really working on the problem? The Reeve Foundation helped to change all that. Today we have a sophisticated re- search program that incorporates multiple initiatives and institutions and approaches, a very full research continuum. We helped build the Foundation out to the point now where it will take basic research and move it down a translational pipeline. We put the infrastructure in place for developing our North American Clinical Trials Net- work, for example, and the NeuroRecov- ery Network. We have built what I consider to be a world-class organization. Q. So the Foundation is more broadly based than in the days when cure was the focus? A. Yes, that is right. Now, our efforts are based much more on our interaction with the community. We released our paralysis survey last year and found out there are many more people living with spinal cord Continued on page 4 Photo by Peter Billard Inside Jack Hughes, Foundation Board Chairman: A Family’s Commitment to the Reeve Mission Mendell Lab: ohn (Jack) Hughes is the Reeve Foundation, enabling the organization to Collaboration Foundation’s fifth Chairman of the significantly expand its research program. by Design Board since its inception in 1982 as Michael Hughes died in 2007. Greg Jthe American Paralysis Association remains active, chairing the Foundation’s (APA). He follows Hank Stifel, Christo- Connecticut Chapter. Jack Hughes, CEO Animal Core Lab: pher Reeve, Dana Reeve and Peter Kier- of Topcoder, the world’s largest competi- Building Capacity nan. Hughes has been a member of the tive software development community in Board since 2000; his family has been as- Glastonbury, CT, spoke with Reeve Foun- sociated with the Reeve Foundation for dation staff member Sam Maddox. Mary Bunge: A Long over 25 years. After Jack’s brother Greg was spinal cord injured, Michael Hughes, Q. In the early days when your family was Career In Progress their father, became involved with the thrown into the world of spinal cord injury, Foundation and was for many years a what was the sense of scientific progress? Research News board member. In 1999, the Hughes fam- A. Almost 30 years ago, when my brother ily made the largest-ever gift to the Reeve Greg was injured, spinal cord injury had a MARY BARTLETT BUNGE: A LIFE IN SCIENCE, IN PROGRESS Mary Bartlett Bunge, a distinguished has studied over most of her career. Laboratories at Bar Harbor “changed the scientist at the Miami Project, thought This article, then, is not a retirement course of my life. One day we put rabbit about retiring after 57 years at the bench. notice. It is a tribute to Dr. Bunge and a heart muscle into tissue culture and I saw Last year, she decided not to participate in thankful appreciation for her many years it beating. I didn’t want to be a technician. the three-year renewal proposal for the of work with the Consortium. I wanted to get into research.” Reeve Foundation International Consor- Mary Bartlett was interested in science Dr. Bunge went to graduate school at tium on Spinal Cord Injury; she had solid- at an early age. “I used to row a small leaky the University of Wisconsin, at the invita- ified her plans to retire by the end of 2010. rowboat along a stream in front of our tion of Dr. Robert Schilling. They worked Her Consortium colleagues threw her house and look at all the wildlife, particu- on projects and published papers related what they thought was a retirement party. larly the tadpoles and the very tiny frogs. to intrinsic factor and gastric juice. “I saw “Can I just say I’m not retiring?” says That inspired me to wonder how the de- him recently. He’s now 90 years old, still Dr. Bunge. “There is a graceful time to re- velopment occurred from tadpole to frog.” working. He said that our papers pub- tire and I don’t think it’s quite as close as I She might have been a fashion de- lished in 1956 and 1957 are still highly re- thought it was. I’m just working, hopefully signer. “I used to design and make my own garded. But I wasn’t really interested in gastric juice.” She received her masters in Medical Physiology. “In the meantime I had taken this course in cell biology with Dr. Hans Ris and had looked at images in the electron microscope. That was another inspira- tional, defining moment. We were using one of the first electron microscopes in the United States; we had to hammer the lenses into place. But still the images were just captivating.” As a graduate student Dr. Bunge took courses with medical students. This is where she met Richard Bunge. “There was this lanky looking guy. I used to sit in the front row and he sat in the front row at the other end. Then, for a summer Richard worked in Dr. Schilling’s lab, on blood samples in the cold room. I didn’t see him during the day. Then at 5 he would vanish into the hospital cafeteria where he washed dishes to help support himself while in medical school. I thought, this guy needs fresh air. I invited him to go sailing and that’s how we got to know each other. When the wind died down in the middle of Lake Mendota we had wonderful long conversations. Dick was going to medical school so he could be a missionary; his hero was Albert Schweitzer.” Back on campus, Dr. Bunge began what University of Miami Miller School Medicine – Photo by John Zillioux was to be a lifelong collaboration with a little bit less.” She says she’s cut back to clothes before I went to college so fashion Richard, who had changed his mind about 75 percent. “I have a new postdoc in my design was a possibility. I was also inter- being a missionary in favor of research. Be- lab. I’m continuing some studies because ested in child psychiatry but biology won tween getting her masters and her Ph.D., there are things that I still want to do and out. I was thinking that’s something I can- Mary and Richard were married. “He really I still am energetic and have a passion to not do on my own. I could make clothes introduced me to neuroscience. From grad try and do something more.” on my own. But I could not get into bio- school on, we worked together.” They One of the loose ends Dr. Bunge wants logical studies on my own so I decided I demonstrated that myelin could be re- to tie up is a pending clinical trial for spinal needed training for that.” formed in the mature mammalian spinal cord injury using a combination of treat- After high school Dr. Bunge took col- cord. “When I put a section of kitten spinal ments including Schwann cells, a type of lege courses to become a laboratory tech- cord into the electron microscope, there in support cell in the nervous system that she nician. A summer course at Jackson the first area of the first section I looked at, 2 was an image like the old fashioned ice The Bunge lab had begun some tongs with the oligodendrocyte cell body Schwann cell transplantation projects in a at the top and two cytoplasmic arms com- spinal cord injury model when Richard got ing off the cell body and it was forming an invitation in 1988 to be scientific direc- myelin at the end of each arm. And that’s tor at the Miami Project. how I discovered that the oligodendrocyte “We realized that moving to Miami was the cell that made the myelin sheath for would be a better opportunity for us to the central nervous system. That was one continue our work in the spinal cord and of my big moments in research.” Martin Schwab, Mary Bunge, Lisa Schnell, on to pursue our interest in repairing the cen- Dr. Bunge says her husband became in- the occasion of Maryʼs ʻretirementʼ party. tral nervous system. We needed to build a terested in nerve tissue culture and wanted myelin repair. Says Dr. Bunge, “Rather bigger team to do this.” to go to New York to study with Dr. Mar- than take a piece of tissue and try to see The Bunge lab at the University of garet Murray at Columbia. “She helped de- how much differentiation we could Miami became one of the preeminent SCI velop the techniques for nerve tissue achieve, the Margaret Murray approach, labs in the world. In 1993 Richard Bunge culture and was able to achieve myelina- we wanted to separate the cells in the pe- was invited to join the Reeve International tion in culture.” Fortunately, there was an ripheral nervous system. With Dr. Patrick Consortium on Spinal Cord Injury. Soon electron microscopy lab at Columbia Wood, we could grow neurons by them- thereafter, however, he became ill with headed by Dr. George Pappas. Very little selves, the Schwann cells by themselves or esophageal cancer (he died in 1996). Mary work had been done to look at the detail in the fibroblasts from peripheral nerve by Bunge took his place in the Consortium. these tissue cultures. “Again we were look- themselves. Then we could prepare differ- “It has been a remarkable and beneficial ing at myelination; actually Dick and I were ent combinations and observe a number of and exciting opportunity for me for which the first to describe synapse formation in tis- important interactions that occur between I am extremely grateful.” Dr.
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