CARLETON UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE (Ottawa, Ontario) Winter 2005 Chill out! Medical miracles (Rob Thoma)

In a lab high in Carleton’s Steacie building, researcher Ken Storey watches frogs freeze nearly solid, then slowly thaw to return miraculously to life. The tiny wood frogs are one of only a handful of animals capable of the extraordinary feat. Storey has spent the last 15 years examining how they do it at the molecular and genetic levels.

Storey is a professor of biochemistry and a Canada Research Chair in molecular physiology — a distinction acknowledging that he is a world leader in his field. But Storey has garnered more than academic awards and citations. His research has captured the popular imagination, and references to his work have been included in children’s books and at least one science fiction novel. As frogs and insects chill in nearby refrigerators, Storey explains why his work receives so much attention.

“We look at some really unique situations, where animals used to be at maximal velocity — they run, they sing, they dance — and then suddenly, they shut themselves off,” Storey says. “They go into a state of suspended animation. They suspend biological time and live in a netherworld where they look dead. Some of the animals are frozen solid.”

In the case of the wood frogs, for example, more than 50 percent of their body water might freeze. Glucose is the secret, Storey has discovered. Wood frogs control the freezing process and convert their blood into a syrupy sugar-mixture that protects internal organs from damaging ice crystals.

Aside from capturing the imagination, the research has important medical applications, and is changing human organ transplant options.

Humans can’t pack their blood with sugar to escape freezing as the wood frog can, but Storey’s research on how ground squirrels shut down metabolism during hibernation is already filtering into the medical field. The molecular knowledge he is discovering could better preserve organs for transplant operations.

“A world in which the survival of an organ goes from two hours to four hours and then from four hours to 24 hours is happening even as we speak. Hearts last longer then they did last year. Kidneys last longer than they did three years ago. The damage low temperature does to organs is being ameliorated all the time,” Storey says.

However, Storey cautions that it can take decades for basic science discoveries to be applied.

“The work goes fairly quickly at the scientific stage and slowly but surely the medical sciences soak up the information,” he says.

And despite the progress of his research, as well as the attention it has garnered, Storey is remarkably modest.

“You play with a team,” he says. “There may be less elbowing under the net than there is in basketball, but it’s a team sport.”
Chill out! Medical miracles

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