Expert Spotlight: Margaret Geller

Whoever says size doesn’t matter has clearly never spent twenty years studying the universe.

On the latest episode of You’re the Expert, Harvard scholar Dr. Margaret Geller confirms that size does in fact matter when you study physical cosmology, or, the application of physics to the study of the universe.  Through field and lab research, Dr. Geller and her team have determined that one can measure precisely how big the universe will grow based on the rate at which the space between galaxies expands. Turns out that the expansion rate of the universe has been accelerating over time, causing the space between the galaxies that comprise our universe to widen. So all we really have to worry about is the universe accelerating at a velocity that causes matter, and all human life as we know it, to rip apart faster than the speed of light.  Science. Is. Terrifying. 

Terrifying, that is, for someone without five honorary doctorates for their achievements uncovering scientific truth about the vastly mysterious universe. And when it comes to scientific rigor and determination to uncover truth, Dr. Geller is no wimp – unless you are talking about someone who studies Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, or W.I.M.Ps. By that definition, she is the highest achieving WIMP at Harvard. 

Along with her team of like-minded scientists, Dr. Geller spends the majority of her time formulating various hypotheses, designing units of measurement by which to study universal matter, and conducts research mostly using a very powerful telescope in Tuscon, Arizona. She then uses computer generated 3-dimensional charts to map slices of the universe into galaxies, which naturally arrange themselves into patterns that resemble bubbles. Giant monster space bubbles.

It is a remarkable accomplishment to devise ways in which to scale the cosmos down to a meaningful and scientifically digestible size. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the magnitude of this effort, because, to quote Dr. Geller, “Size does matter, and the universe wins every time.”

For more on Dr. Margaret Geller, check out this interview:

Or look at this interesting timeline of cosmological development featuring Dr. Geller.

- Lee Stephenson, Production Associate 

Expert Spotlight: Lillie Cohn

At a very young age, Lillie Cohn developed a passion for animals – dead animals.

 While her friends played on swing sets or chased soccer balls across the playground, Lillie scoured her surroundings for creatures to dissect, and the bigger the specimen the better.

This week on You’re the Expert, researcher Lillie Cohn described how her early passion for dead animals biology led her to immunotherapy, a field that doesn’t involve much dissection but does involve a whole lot of blood.

At its most basic level, immunotherapy is using what we already know about the immune system to help our bodies fight off infectious diseases. Some diseases, like the flu, can be fought using vaccines. Other diseases, like cancer or malaria, are trickier to combat because in these cases the immune system doesn’t always recognize which cells are friendly and which cells are causing problems.

As a graduate fellow in the Nussenzweig Laboratory for Molecular Immunology at Rockefeller University, Lillie’s job is to train immune cells – in her case, dendritic cells – to recognize and kill problem-causing cells before they do harm. In other words, immunotherapy is basically molecular counterterrorism, and she’s Carrie Mathison in a lab coat.

Lillie’s got immunotherapy in her blood (literally), which may explain the childhood fascination with decaying rodents and small birds. Lillie’s grandfather, Zanvil A. Cohn, was a professor at Rockefeller University when he and Dr. Ralph M. Steinman discovered a new type of cell – the dendritic cell – in 1970, a discovery that would earn Steinman the Nobel Prize in Medicine 18 years after Cohn’s death and three days after his own. Lillie’s interest in the subject was fostered while working in the labs of these two scientific giants.

 -Lydia Dallett, Production Associate

To hear more about bloodletting and why immunotherapists never wear their lab coats to parties, listen to the full You’re the Expert segment with immunology researcher Lillie Cohn here. 

For a much more thorough and probably more accurate description of the work Lillie’s lab is conducting on dendritic cell biology as it pertains to diseases and vaccines, check out Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology’s current research page here.

Also, in case you enjoy listening to British women talk about science, check out this awesome animated video on how immunotherapy is being used to fight cancer:

 Dendritic cell-based immunotherapy is just one of several ways researchers are manipulating the immune system to fight off diseases. Another popular area of study is allergy immunotherapy. Unlike most allergy treatments, such as antihistamines like Benadryl or Allegra, immunotherapy treats both the symptoms of an allergy and its cause by retraining the immune system to stop reacting violently when it comes into contact with peanut butter or pollen. For a riveting story on one researcher’s fight to get oral immunotherapy studies funded – and the families with at-risk children counting on her – read Melanie Thernstrom’s New York Times Magazine cover story, “The Allergy Buster.” 

Expert Spotlight: Dr. Peg Riley

We're confident that Dr. Margaret "Peg" Riley, a professor at UMass Amherst, will be victorious in the Battle of the Bug.

She has 25 years of experience studying microbial defense systems, the techniques that microbes, which constitute 9 out of 10 cells in the human body, employ to kill bacteria. Dr. Riley has trained a generation of specialists and speaks about deadly bacterial pathogens as if they were cuddly golden retriever puppies placed in stockings at Christmas. Her favorite bacteria is E-coli, which she claims has gotten “a bad rap through NPR” and is not to be feared, but revered.  We're glad that we've got Dr. Riley in our corner, wielding her microscope, when it comes to fighting the war on superbugs.

Much like ground wars are often fought to defend or shift social, political, or economic paradigms, the ultimate goal of Dr. Riley’s teaching and advocacy is to shift the way the world views the reigning paradigm of antibiotics.  In nature, microbes produce “narrow spectrum” defense systems. In other words, they only kill bacteria that are directly threatening their lives. But when we treat pathogenic bacteria in our own bodies, hospitals generally rely on “broad spectrum antibiotics” to neutralize all possible infections. Unfortunately, bacteria tend to develop resistance to broad spectrum drugs and become superbugs, or totally drug resistant pathogens. Dr. Riley wants to shift dominant medical thinking from one that contributes to the creation of these superbugs, to antibiotic treatment that emulates the targeted elimination approach microbes use in nature. 

Will Dr. Riley defeat the superbugs and save us all from the proliferation of totally drug resistant pathogens? Wash your hands thoroughly and tune into "Microbial Defense Systems" to find out.

- Lee Stephenson, Production Associate

Read more about Dr. Riley and her research here: http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/about/directories/faculty/margaret-riley