Spotlight On: James Cheverud
Cheverud, Professor of Biology, awarded $783,940 to study genetic effects on aging, disease, and healing
James Cheverud, PhD, Professor in the Department of Biology within the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University Chicago, has been awarded a $783,940 subaward from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Aging to support his research project, "Targeting Cell Senescence in a Novel Model of Spontaneous Disc Degeneration,” over five years.
“This grant from the National Institute of Health underscores the innovation that has come to define Dr. Cheverud’s work and his leadership in the field of evolutionary biology,” said Peter J. Schraeder in the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University Chicago. “He is a nationally renowned biologist who is highly regarded throughout the Loyola scientific community thanks to over three decades of exceptional and novel research on mice populations, publishing his results in some of the most distinguished journals in his field.”
Cheverud, a renowned researcher in the field of evolutionary genetics and morphology, joined the Department of Biology 10 years ago.
“I was looking for new challenges and to do something different at the end of my career. I am a Chicago-area native and decided to accept a position as chair of the department at the time,” he said. “The Chicago area has many researchers with overlapping interests.”
The research for which Cheverud received a grant stretches back three decades – and 70 mouse generations – back in time.
“I had generated a unique mouse population that has been randomly mated since the early 1990s that has been supported by NSF and various NIH programs. I crossed two inbred mouse strains to use in a gene mapping experiment to map genomic locations, or ‘loci,’ that affected growth at different ages.”
By randomly mating the animals over generations, Cheverud was able to accumulate recombination and reduce the size of segregating genomic intervals, allowing him to study the genetic effects responsible for complex traits like growth, morphology, scarless wound healing, cartilage regeneration, and maternal care, as well as complex human diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and osteoporosis.
This gene mapping research, and the extensive family tree of mice, attracted the attention of Cheverud’s collaborator, Makarand Risbud, PhD, James J. Maguire Jr. Professor of Spine Research and Orthopaedic Surgery and Division Director of Orthopaedic Research at Thomas Jefferson University.
“Dr. Risbud, who is an internationally recognized researcher in orthopedics and bone biology, thought our mice would be ideal for his research on intervertebral disks,” Cheverud explained. “He was aware of our gene mapping project, especially our work on scarless wound healing in mice and our unique ability to fine map complex trait genes. Our LG/J strain of mice – which is the only original mouse inbred strain that can heal tissue damage completely without scarring – is not susceptible to intervertebral disk regeneration, whereas the SM/J strain of mice is strongly susceptible.”
The healing characteristics of the LG/J mice compared to the susceptibility to unrepaired tissue damage in the SM/J mice make them a good model for studying responses to wounding. This unique research model shows how Cheverud and Risbud’s paths converged, spurring their new project mapping genetic variation to study cell senescence and spontaneous disc regeneration.
“Our part of the project at Loyola is to rear the mice, genotype the animals, and analyze the resulting data. Then, Dr. Risbud’s lab will prepare and score histological samples for disk degeneration and perform the RNA sequence analyses. Together, we will jointly interpret the mapping results to identify the genes that may play a role in disk regeneration.”
Why is disk degeneration so important?
Cheverud explained, “Spontaneous intervertebral disk degeneration is a natural process that, like all processes, is subject to aging. As you age, the characteristics of your cells change. Disk degeneration causes back pain from nerve impingement and arthritic changes, leading to severe kyphosis – or ‘hunchback’ – in older adults.”
Which means the evolutionary genetics of healing in mice can tell us a lot about human health. Cheverud and Risbud’s study is of great interest to the medical community, where knowledge of individual genes affecting variation in disk degeneration can be used to study the progression of disease and inform potential treatment strategies.
While Risbud oversees the biomedical components of this research, Cheverud will leverage their findings for his evolutionary models, supporting his interest in the various forms of genetic variation – from epistasis to maternal effects – in evolutionary processes that has been constant throughout his career.
Learn more about Cheverud and his research here.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 15 schools, colleges, and institutes. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments and 33 interdisciplinary programs and centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campuses in Rome, Italy, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as well as at dozens of University-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the University’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.” For further information about the College of Arts and Sciences, please visit our website.
Cheverud, Professor of Biology, awarded $783,940 to study genetic effects on aging, disease, and healing
James Cheverud, PhD, Professor in the Department of Biology within the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University Chicago, has been awarded a $783,940 subaward from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Aging to support his research project, "Targeting Cell Senescence in a Novel Model of Spontaneous Disc Degeneration,” over five years.
“This grant from the National Institute of Health underscores the innovation that has come to define Dr. Cheverud’s work and his leadership in the field of evolutionary biology,” said Peter J. Schraeder in the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University Chicago. “He is a nationally renowned biologist who is highly regarded throughout the Loyola scientific community thanks to over three decades of exceptional and novel research on mice populations, publishing his results in some of the most distinguished journals in his field.”
Cheverud, a renowned researcher in the field of evolutionary genetics and morphology, joined the Department of Biology 10 years ago.
“I was looking for new challenges and to do something different at the end of my career. I am a Chicago-area native and decided to accept a position as chair of the department at the time,” he said. “The Chicago area has many researchers with overlapping interests.”
The research for which Cheverud received a grant stretches back three decades – and 70 mouse generations – back in time.
“I had generated a unique mouse population that has been randomly mated since the early 1990s that has been supported by NSF and various NIH programs. I crossed two inbred mouse strains to use in a gene mapping experiment to map genomic locations, or ‘loci,’ that affected growth at different ages.”
By randomly mating the animals over generations, Cheverud was able to accumulate recombination and reduce the size of segregating genomic intervals, allowing him to study the genetic effects responsible for complex traits like growth, morphology, scarless wound healing, cartilage regeneration, and maternal care, as well as complex human diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and osteoporosis.
This gene mapping research, and the extensive family tree of mice, attracted the attention of Cheverud’s collaborator, Makarand Risbud, PhD, James J. Maguire Jr. Professor of Spine Research and Orthopaedic Surgery and Division Director of Orthopaedic Research at Thomas Jefferson University.
“Dr. Risbud, who is an internationally recognized researcher in orthopedics and bone biology, thought our mice would be ideal for his research on intervertebral disks,” Cheverud explained. “He was aware of our gene mapping project, especially our work on scarless wound healing in mice and our unique ability to fine map complex trait genes. Our LG/J strain of mice – which is the only original mouse inbred strain that can heal tissue damage completely without scarring – is not susceptible to intervertebral disk regeneration, whereas the SM/J strain of mice is strongly susceptible.”
The healing characteristics of the LG/J mice compared to the susceptibility to unrepaired tissue damage in the SM/J mice make them a good model for studying responses to wounding. This unique research model shows how Cheverud and Risbud’s paths converged, spurring their new project mapping genetic variation to study cell senescence and spontaneous disc regeneration.
“Our part of the project at Loyola is to rear the mice, genotype the animals, and analyze the resulting data. Then, Dr. Risbud’s lab will prepare and score histological samples for disk degeneration and perform the RNA sequence analyses. Together, we will jointly interpret the mapping results to identify the genes that may play a role in disk regeneration.”
Why is disk degeneration so important?
Cheverud explained, “Spontaneous intervertebral disk degeneration is a natural process that, like all processes, is subject to aging. As you age, the characteristics of your cells change. Disk degeneration causes back pain from nerve impingement and arthritic changes, leading to severe kyphosis – or ‘hunchback’ – in older adults.”
Which means the evolutionary genetics of healing in mice can tell us a lot about human health. Cheverud and Risbud’s study is of great interest to the medical community, where knowledge of individual genes affecting variation in disk degeneration can be used to study the progression of disease and inform potential treatment strategies.
While Risbud oversees the biomedical components of this research, Cheverud will leverage their findings for his evolutionary models, supporting his interest in the various forms of genetic variation – from epistasis to maternal effects – in evolutionary processes that has been constant throughout his career.
Learn more about Cheverud and his research here.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest of Loyola University Chicago’s 15 schools, colleges, and institutes. More than 150 years since its founding, the College is home to 20 academic departments and 33 interdisciplinary programs and centers, more than 450 full-time faculty, and nearly 8,000 students. The 2,000+ classes that we offer each semester span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our campuses in Rome, Italy, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as well as at dozens of University-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the University’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.” For further information about the College of Arts and Sciences, please visit our website.