Eaves, Connie

CONNIE J. EAVES is stem cell biology researcher at the Terry Fox Laboratory in the British Columbia Cancer Research Centre. She is also the director of the Terry Fox Laboratory and professor of medical genetics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. In addition, she is an associate member of medicine and associate member of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Eaves is a world—class researcher in the field of hematopoietic stem cell biology. She has made a number of discoveries that have aided the development of stem cell assays, and her research has shown that molecular regulation of stem cell fate decisions is significant in the development of breast cancer. She has also contributed to the study of leukemogenesis. Her most important recent discovery has been that breast cells include breast stem cells, which has been a breakthrough in the medical field of breast cancer research.

Eaves earned a bachelor of arts in biology and chemistry from Queen's University in 1964 and a master's of science in biology, specializing in genetics, in 1966. She studied at Paterson Laboratories and the Holt Radium Institute. She received her doctorate from the University of Manchester, England, in 1969.

In 1970 Eaves returned to Canada after completing a postdoctoral year in England to do more postdoctoral work at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto. From 1970 to 1973, she worked with Dr. James Till and Dr. Ernest McCulloch. In 1973 Eaves joined the British Columbia Cancer Institute (British Columbia Cancer Agency) as a National Cancer Institute of Canada Scholar. Her research was on preclinical pius—meson radiobiology. She divided her time there with her position as an assistant professor in medical genetics at the University of British Columbia. In 1980 Eaves played an important role in the founding of the Terry Fox Laboratory at the British Columbia Cancer Agency, and in 1986 she was appointed to the post of deputy director.

Eaves' doctoral research program generated the first known evidence that there are two cell populations that contribute to the generation of antibody responses. The B and T lymphocytes are the two types of cell that are found in the blood, and thus are both scientifically and medically important. This important finding was published in Nature in 1967.

Other important insights gained from Eaves's work developed the concept of a hierarchy of progenitor classes with different lineages in the human body's manufacturing of blood. This led to stem cells eventually being recognized. From this early beginning in hematology, Eaves has become a world—class authority on stem cells in human blood. Her specific research focus now is chronic myeloid leukemia. An important outcome of her work in the 1990s was the contribution she made to understanding the behavior of stem cells in normal and malignant cells in the human breast.

The research that Eaves has followed has currently led her to study the unique properties of stem cells in tissues that are normal, as well as those that are cancerous. The studies have shown that cells have unique properties that can lead to the development of cancer and also to the development of anticancer treatments.

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