James Stafford Principal Investigator Professor, Department of Biological Sciences [email protected]
James Stafford graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor's degree in Medical Laboratory Science and worked for a couple of years as a Medical Laboratory Technologist (MLT) at both the Royal Alexandra and University of Alberta Hospitals in Edmonton. During his BSc., James completed an honours research project in the Oncology Department, where he investigated the effects of low oxygen (hypoxia) on the vascularization of tumor cell lines from the brain. This interesting work set the stage for James to transition from working as an MLT to pursuing research opportunities.
James was accepted into the graduate program in the Biological Science Department at the University of Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Miodrag (Mike) Belosevic. James' initial MSc research project focused on studying how the intracellular parasite Leishmania avoids the antimicrobial responses of macrophages via alteration of potassium channels, however after a few months he switched to a PhD project on a comparative vertebrate model system that examined innate immunity in fish. Specifically, by studying Goldfish (Carassius auratus) macrophages, James' doctoral research provided a new understanding of how extracellular factors activate vertebrate macrophages and he uniquely described a role for cleaved transferrin products as conserved macrophage activation factors. In addition, James cloned and characterized one of the first described toll-like receptors in fish during his PhD.
For his postdoctoral research, James went South to the University of Mississippi Medical Centre in Jackson, MS, USA, where he continued to use a comparative immunology model to help understand the regulatory mechanisms of vertebrate immunity. Using the well-established channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) cell lines, James and colleagues identified a new family of complex immunoregulatory proteins called leukocyte immune-type receptors (LITRs) that were predicted to be important regulators of immune cell effector responses in fish. Importantly, it was shown that channel catfish LITRs are homologous to both mammalian Fc receptors and molecules encoded within the leukocyte receptor complex, which allowed for the design of experiments to examine the functional properties of these immune proteins.
Following the completion of his postdoctoral studies, James was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Science, at the University of Alberta, where he is currently a Full Professor. For nearly two decades since the discovery of LITRs, the Stafford Lab has established a basic research program to investigate the roles of LITRs in catfish, zebrafish, and goldfish. This work has unveiled the unique functional potentials and plasticity of LITR-types using many different experimental approaches. Currently, the Stafford lab is investigating how LITRs regulate Goldfish neutrophils using a newly developed antibody reagent. Furthermore, immunocytochemistry and in situ hybridization approaches are being used to examine LITR+ immune cell distributions in Goldfish tissues before and during inflammatory reactions. This work is providing new in vivo insights into the roles of fish LITRs.
The Stafford Lab has also developed and optimized cell-based approaches for the testing of environmental waters for contaminants of potential concern. Specifically, this work uses macrophage bioassays and microbial-based tests to assess the immunotoxicity and toxicity of oil sands process affected waters (OSPWs) produced during the industrial mining and refining of bitumen in the Alberta Oil Sands Region. OSPW is known to contain a complex mixture of contaminants, including organic compounds such as naphthenic acid species that have been shown to have adverse effects on animals, tissues and cells. The Stafford Lab developed cell-based assays have proven to be effective high throughput, rapid, and sensitive in vitro assays for testing various OSPW treatment options and for long-term surveillance of OSPW stored in demonstration pit lakes. Overall, this work has allowed for a long standing collaboration with Environmental Engineering and access to funding from Industrial partners and National funding agencies.
Header image: stained fish blood cells. Photo credit: Jacob Wang.
