Contact Information Available for logged-in reporters only Newswise For years, doctors have been baffled about why some patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) respond to therapy while others do not. The answer may lie in the fine nuances of a patient's disease; some patients with similar disease symptoms appear to have distinct biological pathways driving their diseases. Sorting out patients with SSc according to their shared biology, Dartmouth investigators discovered how disease heterogeneity can be defined, allowing for targeted selection of patients for clinical trials. Michael Whitfield, PhD of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth's Department of Genetics and Norris Cotton Cancer Center, along with Post-doctoral Fellows Michael Johnson, PhD and J. Matthew Mahoney, PhD, led the research, publishing two papers: "Experimentally-Derived Fibroblast Gene Signatures Identify Molecular Pathways Associated with Distinct Subsets of Systemic Sclerosis Patients in Three Independent Cohorts" in PLoS One, and "Systems Level Analysis of Systemic Sclerosis Shows a Network of Immune and Profibrotic Pathways Connected with Genetic Polymorphisms," in PLoS Computational Biology. Clinical collaborators include Dr. Monique Hinchcliff and Dr. John Varga of Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine. "This work uses rare patient samples collected from three different clinical centers and analyzed by modern genomic technologies … Continue reading →

Any depth of understanding of biology and ecology is accompanied by this inevitable conclusion: parasites rule the world. Theyre the man behind the curtain as fans of Oz would put it. They are the directors and stage managers of the grand production that is life on this Earth, natures finestpuppeteers, and that we think we have any modicum of control over any species physiology in comparison (including our own) is downright laughable. The latest reminder of our inadequacy when it comes to manipulating biology comes from a fresh paper inProceedings of the Royal Society B. In it, scientists describe how the parasitoid wasp, Dinocampus coccinellae, is able to manipulate its host, the ladybug Coleomegilla maculata: it uses another parasite, a never-before seen RNA virus. Parasitoid wasps are some of the most fascinating parasites on Earth. As adults, they are free-living little wasps that go about their day much like other Hymenopterans. But when it comes time to lay their eggs, they do not make nests of paper or mud; instead, they lay their eggsinside another creature. The larvae hatch in their host, and proceed to eat the host alive from the inside before erupting from the body,Aliens-style. Not surprisingly, most … Continue reading →