So when Hubbard came to Hopkins in 1980, she began her hepatocytic work in vivo, and by about three years ago she and her team had generated and cloned a library of antibodies that can pick out and label particular hepatocytic proteins. Some of these proteins are found only on the apical membranes, others only on the basal surfaces. Meanwhile, in France at the Curie Institute of Orsay, a somatic cell geneticist named Doris Cassio had fused cells from a rat liver with a human fibroblast. When the WIF-12s were tested with Hubbard's monoclonal antibodies, the answer was yes, and soon an international collaboration was in flower. For experimental purposes, the cells seem to behave like hepatocytes in vivo.
Excitement is high because whole new lines of research are now open.
For instance, the WIF-Bs may help researchers understand the molecular basis of bile secretion. And for gene therapy, cultured hepatocytes might help researchers attach a DNA correction to the hundreds of proteins that hepatocytes send out all over the body. Hubbard's results have been recently published in the Journal of Cell Science and the Journal of Cell Biology. A less invasive mastectomy Hopkins surgical oncologist William Dooley has dramatically reduced the size of incision required for a mastectomy. In both procedures, the same amount of internal breast tissue is removed and abdominal tissue is used for reconstruction.