Leroy James Lowe (born May 22, 1963) is a Canadianbiologist best known for his “Low Dose Theory of Carcinogenesis”, the “Broad-spectrum approach to Cancer Therapy”, and for his efforts to define “The Human Affectome” in the field of neuroscience.[1][2] He is the Co-Founder and President of Getting to Know Cancer, the Founder and President of Neuroqualia, and a faculty member at the International Business at the Nova Scotia Community College.
After 8 years of self-study, Lowe identified two major challenges in cancer research. First of all, he believed that chemicals from plants and foods could be used to enhance cancer therapy.[2][6] He also believed that everyday exposures to common environmental chemicals (e.g., pesticides, food additives, etc.) might be conspiring to cause cancer.[7][6][8]
Lowe reached out to Theo Colborn (an expert in low dose chemical exposures) for help in 2011. She introduced him to Michael Gilbertson and together Lowe and Gilbertson co-founded Getting to Know Cancer (anNGO), formed an advisory board, and the two of them used a form of crowd-sourcing to launch the Halifax Project in 2012, an initiative involving 350 scientists in 31 countries. The project was aimed at solving the two challenges that Lowe had identified.[2][6][7][8]
In one half of the Halifax Project, 174 scientists from 26 countries were recruited to assess the potential role of low-dose chemical mixtures on the Hallmarks of Cancer. The aim of the project was to produce a series of overarching reviews of the cancer hallmarks that would collectively assess biologically disruptive chemicals that might be acting in concert with other seemingly innocuous chemicals and contributing to various aspects of carcinogenesis.[8][9]
Researchers were organized into twelve teams, and in total, the researchers reviewed 85 examples of chemicals for actions on key pathways/mechanisms related to carcinogenesis. The taskforce concluded that low-dose exposures to disruptive chemicals that are not individually carcinogenic may be capable of instigating and/or enabling carcinogenesis.[10][11]
In the other half of the Halifax Project, Lowe focused on the fact that cancer research had centered primarily on molecular targets for therapeutics, which had achieved notable successes in some cancers, but noted that disease relapse is still common in many cancers due to disease heterogeneity. Lowe noted that attempts to treat this sort of relapse often involves simple combinations of chemotherapy that cannot reach enough molecular targets so many refractory cancers are unstoppable.[2][6]
In this effort, 180 researchers were organized into twelve teams using the Hallmarks of Cancer as an organizing framework. The researchers then tried to identify friendlier chemicals, many of which come from plants and foods that could be combined to reach many targets (key anticancer receptors, pathways, and mechanisms) with little to no toxicity at therapeutic doses. This was intended to address the two major issues of therapeutic resistance and cost.
The interdisciplinary teams reviewed each hallmark area and nominated a wide range of high-priority targets (74 in total) that could be modified to improve patient outcomes. For these targets, corresponding low-toxicity therapeutic approaches were then suggested, many of which were phytochemicals. The task force concluded that a broad-spectrum approach should be feasible from a safety standpoint, that the approach would be relatively inexpensive to implement, and that it should help us address stages and types of cancer that lack conventional treatment, and potentially reduce risk of relapse.[2][12]
Lowe’s research and focus on feelings and emotions began in 2001 when he was working on his PhD in Management. Although his first PhD attempt was interrupted, he explained that while he spent a decade-and-a-half focused on cancer research, he continued to follow the research on feelings and emotions and ultimately had the idea that affective neuroscientists needed a comprehensive and robust functional model that could serve as a common focal point for research in the field.[13] To develop this model, Lowe used the same approach that he used for the Halifax project. He launched an NGO called Neuroqualia[14] and described the problem on a dedicated project website. He coined the term Human Affectome to describe the entire complex of affective experience and then recruited an advisory board, along with 12 team leaders and 12 teams to help him develop a functional model that could capture the scope of the research being undertaken in this field. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews agreed to create a special issue for the project, guest editors were used, and so far, 12 open access articles have been published by the 12 teams.[15][13]
Assessing the carcinogenic potential of low-dose exposures to chemical mixtures in the environment: the challenge ahead, 2015, WH Goodson III, L Lowe, et al, Carcinogenesis 36 (Suppl_1), S254-S296
Low-dose mixture hypothesis of carcinogenesis workshop: scientific underpinnings and research recommendations, 2017, MF Miller, WH Goodson III et al, Environmental health perspectives 125 (2), 163-169
Testing the low dose mixtures hypothesis from the Halifax project, 2020, WH Goodson, L Lowe, M Gilbertson, DO Carpenter, Reviews on Environmental Health 35 (4), 333-357
The role of hedonics in the Human Affectome, 2019, S Becker et al, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 102, 221-241
Physiological feelings, 2019, EF Pace-Schott, et al, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 103, 267-304
The neuroscience of social feelings: mechanisms of adaptive social functioning, 2021, PJ Eslinger, et al, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Sep, 128, 592-620
The neuroscience of positive emotions and affect: Implications for cultivating happiness and wellbeing 2021, R Alexander, et al, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 121, 220-249
Anticipatory feelings: neural correlates and linguistic markers, 2020, E Stefanova, et al., Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 113, 308-324
A sensorimotor control framework for understanding emotional communication and regulation, 2020, JHG Williams, et al, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 112, 503-518
Neuroimaging the consciousness of self: Review, and conceptual-methodological framework, 2020, P Frewen, et al, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 112, 164-212
The neuroscience of sadness: A multidisciplinary synthesis and collaborative review, 2020, JA Arias, et al, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 111, 199-228
The feeling of anger: From brain networks to linguistic expressions, 2020, N Alia-Klein, et al, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 108, 480-497
Current understanding of fear learning and memory in humans and animal models and the value of a linguistic approach for analyzing fear learning and memory in humans, 2019, J Raber, et al, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 105, 136-177
