Alan Lomax shines at GIDRU

Alan Lomax is too modest to say it, but he is a rising star in Kingston’s medical research community.  

Just 35-years-old, the assistant professor at Queen’s is already running his own lab in the Gastrointestinal Diseases Research Unit or GIDRU.

The scientist admits, “I’m pretty new on the scene so it’s been a good year.” 

A good year as he’s now secured some big government research grants to keep his lab going at KGH. That’s in a highly competitive environment where about eighty percent of requests are turned down.

 “After all those years of training, you always wonder if you can make it on your own as an independent researcher. I have the funding to do that now and I guess that means I’m over a major hurdle,” he says. 

Lomax is not a medical doctor.  He’s a scientist studying the underlying mechanisms of inflammatory bowel disease, an umbrella term for conditions like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. 

Originally from Ireland, Lomax earned his PhD in Australia and then landed in Calgary.  So what brought him to Kingston five years ago?

“The Queen’s group is one of the best in Canada, if not North America, with an ideal mix of PhD and MD researchers” he says.  “And Kingston has strategically concentrated on gastrointestinal research.” 

Inflammatory bowel disease or IBD is very common but under-recognized.  200,000 Canadians suffer from it.  But people don’t tend to talk about their gastro-intestinal health the way they do other parts of their body. The symptoms are painful, sometimes embarrassing and debilitating, diarrhea, weight loss, failure to thrive in life.  Lomax says the human cost is terrible.  It’s a chronic condition that hits people in the prime of life, often when they’re teenagers.

Lomax is trying to figure out how the nervous system contributes to and is altered by the disease. Most people don’t know they have a nervous system in their gut, or bowel system.  Or, that there are as many neurons in their GI tract as in their spinal column. During an inflammatory outbreak, the nervous system produces molecules.  Lomax is trying to figure out which of those molecules might play a big role in the syndrome. It’s a strategy to identify potential therapies.

Alan Lomax now has the money he needs to carry on with his investigations for now.  While the career path for a young researcher can be precarious it’s a journey that Lomax is still on and enjoying.  One of the joys of the job is seeing and mentoring students. 

“It’s a lot of fun,” he says.  “Queen’s attracts very bright kids. I have the best graduate students in the country.”

Lomax is a young role model training the next generation of scientists.  And he’s looking for the breakthrough that could help people who live with inflammatory bowel disease.