Kathleen Hill 2004 recipient of Ferguson Research Grant

Thanks to a $5000 grant from the Malcolm and Ruth Ferguson Research Grant in Life Sciences, Dr. Kathleen Hill’s research team in the Department of Biology will be able to get the right tools for the job of analyzing genetic damage. “What the grant will actually fund is computer software and we call it our mutagenesis research tool kit,” says Hill, “it’s just like a repair person going out with their tool kit wherever they go, this is what we have as geneticists: this software package.”

Despite the many DNA repair mechanisms organisms possess, some mutations manage to persist in the genetic code and, as time progresses, environmental and built-in factors add more mutations which accumulate in the genetic code of an individual. Dr. Hill’s laboratory studies if the increased load of mutations has any affect on conditions such as cancer, nerve degeneration and age related diseases. As Hill explains it, “when we study mutation load we call it a mutation load index or MLI and our thinking is it might be like a BMI, people know about their Body Mass Index and in the public mind there is a good BMI and a bad BMI. It may be the same with mutation load, in other words, in normal tissues we can study the amount of DNA damage and then ask in individuals predisposed to cancer do they have a higher MLI than individuals who don’t go on to have cancer.” The software for the mutagenesis toolkit was chosen to upgrade and integrate into existing programs used within the department. The three separate programs analyze DNA, RNA and protein sequences, perform large multiple sequence alignment projects, detect mutations and perform statistical analyses.

The Malcolm and Ruth Ferguson Research Grant was established to support the research activities of a full time faculty member in biology. The award alternates annually between research in plant sciences and zoology. The award celebrates Dr. Ferguson's wide ranging interests in biological research.

Dr. Malcolm Ferguson's notable and varied career started here at Western in 1934 when he earned his M.A. in Zoology. In 1937 he earned his Ph.D. in Parasitology from the University of Chicago in Urbana, degrees in Pathology from Columbia and Tropical Medicine from the U.S. Army Medical School followed. Later, he produced award winning films in topics ranging from schistosomiasis to heart research. He and his wife Ruth endowed a number of awards to Western prior to his death in 1998.

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