The wonders of relaxin
How a pregnancy hormone could help the heart
Chris Hatzis
Eavesdrop on Experts, a podcast about stories of inspiration and insights. It's where expert types obsess, confess and profess. You'll meet people you wouldn't normally meet but will be glad you did. I'm Chris Hatzis. Let's eavesdrop on experts and see how these 21st century explorers are changing the world, one lecture, one experiment, one interview at a time.
[Background noise of maternity hospital]
We're in the maternity ward of a major women's hospital. It's a busy place and I would imagine quite stressful. We're going to follow our reporter, and father of two, Steve Grimwade on a mission to understand more about a hormone that features in childbirth, oddly called relaxin.
Steve Grimwade
Cardiovascular disease kills one Australian every 12 minutes or thereabouts. How do you hope that your research can impact these statistics? Is that part of the dream for you?
Chris Hatzis
That's Steve Grimwade, who still gets a little nervous hanging around maternity wards.
Laura Parry
I've always been fascinated with pregnancy. So, the mother has to change her whole physiology. The way her heart works, the way her kidney works. Otherwise, she's going to get very, very ill carrying this baby to term.
Chris Hatzis
And that is Professor Laura Parry, a bio-scientist at the University of Melbourne who studies the hormone relaxin in pregnancy and its possibilities for treating cardiovascular disease. Steve cornered
Laura Parry into a quiet meeting room for a chat. Let's eavesdrop.
Steve Grimwade
So, pretend that you've met at a barbecue. You know, I'm a bit of a rube in this area. I have no idea what you do. I'm going, Laura, what is it you do?
Laura Parry
Well my standard line - and when you fill out your immigration card coming back into Australia, I say I'm a scientist at the university. But I also teach and I have a fantastic job at the moment where I do sort of lots of strategic planning around research in the whole Faculty of Science. So now I work with physicists, chemists. I've gone back to working with mathematicians again and I'm understanding lots about science in many different areas.
Steve Grimwade
Just out of interest, who on earth named the hormone relaxin and why?
Laura Parry
[Laughs]. Well, we have to back to pregnancy Steve. So it was named - back in the early 1920s, there was a gentleman called Hisaw and he worked on guinea pigs. Now guinea pigs give birth to enormous young for an animal of its size. And he asked the question, how on earth can a guinea pig actually give birth to this young and particularly the size of its head. So he looked to see if there was anything in the blood that was increased at the end of pregnancy. In fact, what he did was to collect ovaries of a pregnant female, sort of chop them up and make them into a solution and then inject them into non-pregnant guinea pigs. He saw that that material widened the pelvic girdle. He saw that there was a change in the ligaments and that they relaxed.
Steve Grimwade
Wow.
Laura Parry
So that's how it got its name.
Chris Hatzis
If they can find a way to produce and then sell relaxin over the counter, I think it would be a multi-billion-dollar industry and they wouldn't have to do any market research for the name.
Steve Grimwade
So, what was your first burning question?
Laura Parry
I've always been fascinated with pregnancy, which is where this hormone relaxin is produced in highest concentrations in pregnancy. So the mother has to change her whole physiology. The way her heart works. The way her kidney works. Otherwise she's going to get very, very ill carrying this baby to term. Then you have to go through the whole process of changing the uterus, the birth canal, to actually get that baby out. So I'm fascinated, why does that happen? What is the dynamic between the baby and the mother? Because the baby wants to stay in for as long as possible, so it can grow and have a better chance to survive when it's born. But the mother is thinking, I don't want carry this thing. Or the bigger it gets, the harder it is for me to actually give birth to it.
So there's a conflict between the foetus wanting to stay in for longer and the mother who doesn't want it to stay in. I like that conceptually. I think my other interest is, is why some women get very ill during their pregnancy and what can we do to help them. Because there are an awful lot of women who do get ill during their pregnancy.
Steve Grimwade
Does the hormone relaxin have a part to play in all of these things you've been discussing?
Laura Parry
It does. So that's why I came into the field. There was - I knew about a hormone that was very beneficial in pregnancy. But my discovery and the one I get really excited about, unexpectedly was found that it improves the way blood vessels work. So during pregnancy, we need the blood vessels to widen and relax and the mother then can adapt to being pregnant.
It's through that discovery that we learnt that the hormone could be used in males. So although males have it, you can't measure it in the blood. So it's very, very low concentrations in males. But if you treat males with relaxin, it has very beneficial effects. So in many diseases, you have blood vessels that are contracted and you need to dilate them. So relaxin as a treatment can do that and then it will really reduce many of the symptoms associated with high blood pressure and other sort of diseases.
Chris Hatzis
Now, next up, Steve mentions a disease called pre-eclampsia. Just to explain, it's a disorder of pregnancy characterised by the onset of high blood pressure and often a significant amount of protein in the urine. In severe cases, it may lead to red blood cell breakdown, impaired liver function, shortness of breath due to fluid in the lungs or visual disturbances. Needless to say, it increases the risk of poor outcomes for both mother and baby.
Steve Grimwade
So this could be used in cardiovascular diseases and pre-eclampsia, which I think is where pregnant women get dangerously high blood pressure.
Laura Parry
Well my two areas are - can relaxin be used to sort of improve blood vessel function in the disease pre-eclampsia, because that's why the women are getting ill and hypertensive, and I'm working on the can relaxin be used to improve blood vessel function in patients with heart failure. Now although the disease is driven by problems with the heart, many of the sort of secondary effects are because there are problems with the blood vessels and it’s very hard to pump the blood around the body normally. So they get lots of secondary symptoms, including organ failure. So those are my two main areas.
Chris Hatzis
Well, it sounds like it might have enormous potential to treat cardiovascular disease. Let's hope that Laura's research and knowledge leads to some incredible breakthroughs in the hopefully not too distant future.
Steve Grimwade
We're going to go back in time. I'm interested to know how you started to better understand the connections between starting on the path you have and where the path has lead you. When did you know what you wanted to do and what inspired you down this path?
Laura Parry
That's a very good question, Steve. I like to think of myself as an accidental scientist. At school, I studied languages and mathematics and I only started studying biology very late on. I was inspired by a particular biology teacher. We had a field trip where we had to collect snails and we had to take them from one location and put them in another location and paint them and then go back the next day to see if they were still there. Of course, they weren't, they'd moved. But the question for me, I got very curious, is why would a snail stay where it is or why would it move and that just got me interested in biology. So I dropped my languages and maths and I started on a different path in biology.
Steve Grimwade
Did you ever find out why snails move?
Laura Parry
No, because in the end I wasn't interested about snails, I got much more interested in things that were cute and furry.
Chris Hatzis
Good move Laura Parry. Although those languages may have helped you ordering a serving of escargot in French restaurants.
Steve Grimwade
So what's been your - the biggest surprise for you in your time in the lab?
Laura Parry
Really, in 25 years, it's just how much technology has changed to help us with our research. So when I started, there were very basic mechanisms to measure blood pressure. There were no such things as the mice with the genes that have been modified. So gene knockout mice. Then there were all the very tiny devices that you can actually implant into animals for research. Non-invasive now. So that the animal welfare is absolutely essential and very well thought out. So it's changing our whole attitudes about using animals for scientific research and in fact eliminating them, which I think is very positive. The huge change is being able to work with hospitals and clinicians and getting closer to the people who actually have the disease.
Steve Grimwade
I'm interested in - what you spoke about just then was eliminating animals from research. I mean, that is possible?
Laura Parry
Yes, it is and it's a very, very important aspect for anybody who actually does scientific research. I think what we have to remember, as I say, 20 years ago when I started, that was the only resource you had available to you. So to be able to eliminate all of that and still do very high quality research is actually a priority for many researchers around the world.
Steve Grimwade
There's a huge number of obstacles I guess as a researcher and part of your funding is not only government, it's also big pharma. Are there implications for dealing with big pharma in the way they shape your research? Do they shape your research?
Laura Parry
I think that's a misconception. In some instances, you may be working with them on a topic, a question, a drug, of immediate benefit to them financially. But at the end of the day, it's of immediate benefit to the population, because if you do have a drug that’s going to make their life better or reduce a symptom and also, I guess the stress on a family as well, it's a win-win. I can say my relationship has been a collaboration and my own research is shaped by myself and my people in my laboratory. I've got closer to where I want to be to helping people get better. I couldn't do that on my own.
You have to manage the perceived and potential conflict of interest working with a pharmaceutical company. If that's all documented well and you're open about it, then there should be no question about the validity and the authenticity of what you do. As long as the idea is yours and remains yours and you're allowed to publish utterly freely, whether it's what they want to see or what they don't want to see, then again, I see it as an incredibly positive relationship.
Steve Grimwade
I'm guessing that working in a lab must be like working with a family and people come and go and they leave the family. I saw on your website that again, you note that the scientists that have worked with you but left. Is there that pressure about keeping the lab going, keeping the team together?
Laura Parry
Yes and that's just the nature of the job. It's like being a mother bird. You lay your eggs and your eggs hatch and then they fledge and you have to be prepared for that turnover. The excitement is watching
where they go afterwards.
Steve Grimwade
Have to let your fledglings fly away. I'm just going to wipe a tear away. So when you were a young student, what was some great advice that was given to you and maybe, was it something that you continue to pass on to the students that work with you?
Laura Parry
What was the best advice I got? I think it was to never forget that you need to be honest and operate with full integrity. So never try to hide anything - with science take it for what it is. What you see. Because if you look closely, you'll see something you didn't expect.
Steve Grimwade
How do you balance your dreams and the hard slog of research and the way it'll change directions at any point in time?
Laura Parry
Well I'm a glass half-full person, so I dream all the time [laughs].
Steve Grimwade
Okay, great.
Laura Parry
You just - I think dreaming, thinking big, being positive is so important. That's actually where your ideas come from. The funding one is an interesting one that you bring up. I've always said, my analogy is surfing. So you're on a surfboard and you're paddling out. It's quite an effort to get out there. You turn around and you wait for your perfect wave. Then you're on it, you have the ride of your life, but you're going to end up back on the beach and you've got to turn around and you've got to paddle back out again. To me, that is exactly what funding for your science is about. It's enjoy the ride when you're on wave. You've just got to be creative about making the journey back out there easier.
Chris Hatzis
Loving the surfing analogy. I think all future science funding pitches should be presented by somebody wearing a wetsuit.
Steve Grimwade
Now going back and you spoke about reality checks as a scientist. What's the worst nightmare? Is there anything that could go wrong for you or that would go wrong in your research that would just sort of be a wall you can't surmount?
Laura Parry
I think there are two things. The funding side of things is a challenge. So that is always a worry that you can't actually do the things you want to do from a financial point of view. But you know, there could come a point where you simply have shown what you needed to show, that the hormone does or doesn't do something. I think the worst-case scenario is that treatment with this particular hormone has no benefits over other things that are available on the market. Effectively then, then there would be no reason to continue studying it, because there are things out there already. So I guess the biggest fear is someone scoops you to it.
Steve Grimwade
Yeah.
Laura Parry
Then you just have to be ready to move on [laughs].
Steve Grimwade
What would you like us to think about when you see - is it a pregnant woman, is there something that you want us to think about in relation to your research?
Laura Parry
I think if you walk down the street and you see a pregnant woman - and most often you'll notice how incredibly huge she is. I think the question I'd like you to think about and what I'm interested in is, how can that happen? How can she be carrying something so big and her - everything about her own health remains normal.
Steve Grimwade
Laura, thank you so much, it's been a lot of fun.
Laura Parry
Thank you Steve, likewise.
Chris Hatzis
Wise words, Laura Parry, you glass half-full dreamer you. Good luck with all of your work into the relaxin hormone. So aptly and beautifully named. So next time you see a pregnant woman, instead of lamely commenting on her glow, think about what Laura Parry wants you to think about.
Thanks to our reporter Steve Grimwade who bumped into lots of expectant fathers who were definitely not relaxing. Thanks to our wonderful guest, Professor Laura Parry.
Eavesdrop on Experts, stories of inspiration and insights, is a production of the University of Melbourne, Australia. This episode was recorded in 2016. You'll find a full transcript on our website. Recording by Arch Cuthbertson. Co-production by Andi Horvath. I'm Chris Hatzis, producer and editor. Join me again next time for another Eavesdrop on Experts
Professor Laura Parry is fascinated by how the physiology of a woman changes during pregnancy. She’s studying the hormone relaxin to see how it relates to hypertension and pre-eclampsia.
But what really excites her is its potential to treat heart disease.
Episode recorded: 29 July 2016
Producers: Dr Andi Horvath and Chris Hatzis
Audio engineer: Arch Cuthbertson
Editor: Chris Hatzis
Banner image: Pixabay
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