Dr. Valery Z. Grdzelishvili PhD

 

Interview: Dr. Valery Z. Grdzelishvili, PhD - Professor Molecular Virology and Cancer Therapy

By Christopher Castagno (MS2) and Sean Bhalla (MS2)

 

 

1. When were you first interested in science and specifically, being a virologist?
   
   I finished high school in the Soviet Union and in the Soviet Union, there was an application for which department of science (biology, physics, math, etc.) that you wanted to attend in college. I wanted to be involved with animals and I did not know exactly what I wanted to do. I originally wanted to work with animals, however after the first semester, I needed to pick my department. I picked virology because I had an older friend that was interested in this career and there were also a lot of research opportunities in this field at my school. It was very hard to find functional labs after the collapse of the USSR. Plant virology was a big focus in my lab, and my focus was in plant virology prior to coming to the United States. In the Russian system, when you pick your path, you have to pick classes in the order that they lay out. I liked virology because I did not like doing experiments on animals and wanted to stay with lab research. 
2. Looking back on your life, would you have still chosen the same path?
   
   We have 3 types of students in biology: Pre-med, PhD focused, and a lot of students that are undecided across the board. If I had to do this again, I would do the same. I disagree that it is too hard to become a professor. You must be patient and focused. All my friends who stuck with and committed to becoming a professor, have become one. Just look at COVID19, Virology is a very important career field. However, I would probably do more bioinformatics and coding integration. There needs to be more cross-communication between biological research and bioinformatics. I advise my students to find labs that have bioinformatics incorporation. Big data is the future of research and medicine. When bioinformatics started off in the late 80’s / early 90’s, we originally thought it was just useful tool. No one could have imagined just how power is behind the sheer amount of data we now have. Younger professors we are hiring have a lot more experience with bioinformatics departments and statistical analysis.
3. How did you decide to focus your research/life’s work on oncolytic viral therapy, specifically for pancreatic cancer?
   
   I came to the United States for my postdoc in plant virus research and drug research regarding converting tobacco into something else useful. I started out using viruses to add genes to plants to generate other useful chemicals and biomedical applications. My second post-doc was in Madison, Wisconsin. I was involved in papillomavirus and how they cause cancer, like - cervical cancer. In 2004, I completely switched to animal viruses and in 2006 when I started my lab in Charlotte, I looked at how viruses hurt animal cells. However, when my friend moved to Charlotte, we talked about immunotherapy regarding cancer, and I knew some people that were working on oncolytic viruses (good viruses). I noticed that no one had studied the virus I was working on to be used as a cancer treatment.
   
   I also had a great PhD student, and she was very motivated to work with cancer therapy. She wanted to start experiments with pancreatic cell lines. She started off with just 3 cell lines, and then we just started adding more. Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) showed to be extremely kinetic in pancreatic cancer cells lines and almost negligible in normal cell lines. We never saw this before and nothing had been shown before in pancreatic cancer. For about 3 years or so, we were working on other projects, but now we have completely shifted to oncolytic viral therapy and specifically pancreatic cancer. It took several years to make this switch, but there were so many different factors that came together to make this happen. Pancreatic cancer is estimated to become the second largest cancer in the world because it is growing in prevalence due to obesity, diabetes, and other factors. It is an important cancer to tackle due to inability to early diagnosis and the rise of diabetes across the world. 
4. What was the hardest part of becoming a PI in the USA?
   
   There are so many benefits to being from outside the United States coming here. I was on a work visa and I was forced to stay in my field because I would have had to leave if I left my career field. Foreign scientists must stay in their field for many years and are not really able to switch to other career paths. They have to be focused. American citizens have so many options that they can just easily leave. It is very competitive to become a PI and you just have to stay dedicated, willing to move, and stay the course. You either stay many years in one place and build your CV and then apply, or move to find places that can build your CV. You need to find a productive environment and be open minded. 
5. What are your plans for future research?
   
   My focus is going to still be on oncolytic viral therapy, and I want to starting looking into some novel viruses. I am really interested in the evolution of viruses. How do viruses naturally evolve? I want to better understand the mechanism of how they adapt and change. I also would like to add a strong bioinformatics aspect to my lab and possibly thinking of studying other cancers for viral therapy. We are also looking at using viruses in DVM therapy for dogs and/or domestic animals. The model and concept are basically the same and there is potential for therapy with that aspect.
   
   Overall, it is very difficult to find a balance between immunity, cancer, and viral therapy. The immune system does not see the oncolytic virus as being helpful, it sees it as an enemy and that is a major hurdle to overcome to find a successful therapy in humans. Ideally you want the viruses to lyse the cancer cells and notify the immune system that they are foreign. However most immune systems identify and clear the virus itself, instead of the cancer cells. It is a race between the immune system and the virus. There are a lot of countries, including the USA, that now have approval for oncolytic viral therapy. There is going to be a push towards personalization of the viruses towards a person’s specific cancer. Combination therapy, ie. chemotherapies + viral therapy, is also going to be way more successful in the long term instead of just one single therapy by itself.