Research Program -- Evolutionary Dynamics of Disease
Goals:
1) To develop and extend theoretical links between evolution and pathology.
2) To explore how evolutionary theory informs our understanding of disease.
3) To generate and test new evolutionary hypothesis about disease processes in vertebrates.
For more information on individual research projects, see links on the sidebar.
Our research in the news:
General Description of Research Program:
This program currently focuses on two main issues--evolutionary pathogenesis of cancer and of infectious disease--hepatitis B and malaria, in particular. The human body, or any body for that matter, represents an ecological theater in which disease-causing entities evolve. If the disease is malignant neoplasia (cancer), then the evolving agents are malignant (and perhaps "submalignant") cells of the tumor. With infectious disease, it's more straightforward--the viruses, bacteria or parasites are evolving. Of course, humans evolve in response to disease, but this interesting subject rarely lies in the direct line of our research. Human evolution in response to disease is more epidemiology, and we tend to focus more on pathogenesis. Recently our modeling has brought us increasingly into the details of intracellular molecular biology, so we have a couple of papers that lay the foundations for a link between disease and evolution at the level of molecular biology.
Additional Research Thrusts:
My original interest in evolutionary biology led me to study the evolution of dispersal. I used Spruce Grouse (Falcipennis canadensis--"Sickle-wing from Canada," formerly Dendragapus canadensis--"Tree-lover from Canada") in central Ontario as a model organism before moving to American pika (Ochotona princeps) at Bodie State Historic Park and the adjacent area of the Sierra Nevada. This problem still interests me, but it no longer occupies the central focus of my research. The connection between my interest in the evolution of dispersal and cancer is metastasis, essentially dispersal in malignant neoplasia. Metastasizing cells probably left the tumor for the same evolutionary reasons pikas disperse from the area of their birth, when they do, which is typically rare. They also face many of the same selection pressures, with the big negative of having to run a predatory gauntlet in the process.) Also, my interest in predator-prey--probably the first thing I ever studied seriously (i.e., beyond a textbook using mathematics--has recently been rekindled. Hao Wang, now at the University of Alberta, and I have a paper with Olivier Gilg and my friend and long-time collaborater Yang Kuang on the role of predator maturation delay on predator-prey dynamics.
