MS Patient, Ph.D.

Today we begin a new feature here at MSDF: a series of blog posts we’re calling “MS Patient, Ph.D.”

There are numerous blogs and other websites where people with MS talk with other people with MS. And there are also a few, including this one right here, where MS researchers and clinicians talk with other researchers and clinicians. But I can’t think of any sites where people with MS who also have a scientific bent communicate directly with researchers and clinicians. That’s what MS Patient, Ph.D. is all about.

This will be a place where two very articulate people struggling with MS, both of them Ph.D. biologists, will present their points of view about their disease and about the state of MS research. You’ll find that some of their opinions are provocative and controversial, and I hope you’ll choose to engage with these opinions by making liberal use of the comment function. I hope everyone will learn something as we bring intelligent, informed opinion from the patient’s point of view to researchers and clinicians.

MS Patient, Ph.D. will be updated weekly, with our two bloggers alternating. First up will be Griselda Zuccarino-Catania, Ph.D. Griselda has a Ph.D. in immunobiology from Yale University. Her thesis work was focused on evaluating the recall response of distinct populations of memory B cells. During graduate school, Griselda most enjoyed getting to talk to people about her research and organizing various community outreach programs in New Haven, CT. After her diagnosis with MS in April 2012 and the accompanying frustrations of being a patient, she became interested in improving communication between clinicians and patients.

Emily Willingham is our other blogger. Emily is a Ph.D. scientist, science writer, and educator who focuses on developmental biology as a scientist and on autism as a science writer. She earned her bachelor's in English and her doctorate in biological sciences at the University of Texas at Austin and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. Her other pursuits include writing science-related books, including the upcoming Science of Parenting from Perigee Books/Penguin Group, and opinionating at Forbes about autism, science, and the media. As a partner to a descendent of the Vikings and the parent of three sons, she keeps busy at home in addition to continuing her scientific research and teaching at local institutions. Emily carries a diagnosis of possible primary progressive multiple sclerosis and thus has been confusing to neurologists and of limited interest to multiple sclerosis researchers.

Please join me in welcoming Griselda and Emily and MS Patient, Ph.D.

Bob Finn
Executive Editor
MS Discovery Forum

Read other MS Patient, Ph.D. blog posts.