Corradin Lab

Whitehead Institute attracts people that are driven — and often that means people that bring an impressive level of intensity to their hobbies and side projects, too. Some have leaned on their outside interests to find balance and respite during the COVID-19 pandemic — and often as not, they parlay their interests to contribute to the community at the same time.

On this episode of AudioHelicase podcast, Whitehead Fellow Olivia Corradin talked about investigating the genetic underpinnings of diseases through a new technique she developed, the outside variant approach. Applying the method to study the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis (MS), Corradin and colleagues identified a role for a cell type in the brain in MS, offering a new way of understanding the disease. 

Whitehead Institute researchers used a new approach for analyzing genetic risk data and discovered that disease-linked genes cause problems in brain cells that contribute to multiple sclerosis, which had been thought of as a solely autoimmune disease. This information could lead to the development of new therapies for multiple sclerosis, and the approach can be applied to gain insights into other diseases.