Ben Aronson, Assistant Professor

(909) 793-2121 ext 2922

Hedco Room 111

ben_aronson@redlands.edu

 

 

Courses taught


Primary Research Interest

What lies beneath; the study of the interaction between Drosophila and its endosymbiont.Despite a century of intensive study of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, researchers only recently recognized that in some individuals a tiny microbe called Wolbachia is harbored within the Drosophila cells. Does the Wolbachia cause disease in those individuals that are infected? Not really. There is, however, a strange effect the bacteria has on the reproduction of uninfected flies. Eggs that were a result of a mating between an uninfected female and infected male are significantly less likely to hatch than eggs from any other type of mating. This is particularly surprising since the sperm of an infected male does not have any bacteria. So what could be the difference between sperm from an infected versus uninfected male? What proteins from the fly are necessary to cause this reduced hatch rate? Living inside of the cell of another organism is a strange ecological niche. What challenges does this microbe have in surviving in such an environment? To what extent does the microbe rely on the host cell for specific nutrients? To what extent does harboring the bacteria create the potential for a physiological stress on the host? These are some of the questions that I am hoping to answer using Drosophila genetics to probe for important host factors in this close association between endosymbiont and host.

In the past several years I have had eight students working on various projects. This work has been presented at the Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research at Long Beach and at the 42nd Drosophila Research Conferencein Washington, D.C. To the right is a picture of a student, Joe Pearson, presenting his work at the SCCUR meeting in the fall of 2000. Currently, three students are doing research. Aaron Abrahamsen is undertaking a genetic screen to identify Drosophila genes that modify the viability of Wolbachia-infected flies. Mike Hahn and Corie Kramer are initiating experiments to examine the effects of temperature on the reproductive effect induced by Wolbachia.
 
 
 

Secondary Research Interests

Cloning cats. Cats are noteworthy for their curiosity. While curiosity might kill the cat, knowledge brings it back. In order to generate both greater curiosity as well as greater knowledge, I am attempting to clone cats. I have started with my cat known as Snoop (because of his curiosity he snoops about quite a bit) and have attempted to clone him. Cells were taken from the tail and cultured in a special nutrient mix; the nutrients came from various sources. One seemingly critical source is the ground extract of the Easter candy known as Peeps. The pleiomorphic property of peeps has been demonstrated over the last several years. Peeps can aggregate to form rabbits, chicks, bats, pumpkins, cats, and even ghosts.. The ability of peep cells to grow into both animal and plant forms is a clear indication of its vast developmental potential.

The results of my first cloning experiment are shown below. It can be seen that the experiment was largely successful since the cells from Snoop's tail gave rise to a cat that looks similar to Snoop. There are, however, indications that the experiment was not a complete success. First, the cloned cat (known as Growler) does not have as many white markings as Snoop. I believe this is because the cells that were used for cloning came from an area of Snoop that had no white markings. Second, Growler weighs much less than Snoop. This may be simply the result of diet. But perhaps more disturbing is that Growler is a female despite Snoop being a male. How could the cells of a male cat regenerate an animal that is a female? It is possible that during the culturing of the cells the Y chromosome was lost. Finally, recall that one goal of the project is to generate both greater curiosity and greater knowledge. But Growler is neither curious nor knowledgable. She seems to lounge about all day on the couch or bed. And while she is knowledgable enough to know that it is dinner time when the can opener pierces the can of Trader Joe's tuna, she cannot distinguish this situation from a can of Campbells mushroom soup being opened.


 
 
 
 

Figure 1. Snoop and his cloned companion Growler. Note the lack of white coloring on Growler's face. Future work will be aimed at making a clone of Snoop that is morphologically identical. Growler is being carefully examined to see if there are any adverse health effects of the cloning process. Some have reported that cloned animals show shortening of the ends of chromosomes known as telomeres. This will be investigated as will the peculiar behavioral traits of Growler. These behavioral traits include loud squealing noises just prior to being fed, excessive sleeping, and a clear obsession for Nepeta cataria.
   
 

Growing cats from seed. Finally, as a potential substitute for cat cloning or breeding, growing cats from seed might be appealing. I have been pursuing this line of research. One day I noticed some seed pods falling off of Snoop's well-groomed coat. At first I thought that these were from the Shammel ash tree in our yard. Yet I took the initiative to plant the seed in a terra cotta pot. I was as surprised as anyone when I saw the result (shown below) several weeks after planting the seed. This cat has been named Bustopher.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Figure 2. Bustopher just prior to flowering. Bustopher was planted on December 1st, 1998. Sprouting from a seed did not effect his general physical characteristics; in just several months he achieved maturity. This might be attributed to the constant watering that was provided. He currently weighs almost twelve pounds.