Harvard paleontologist finds connections between prehistoric illnesses and modern disease

New fossil research may help us learn more about illness and disease in the present by digging into the past.

Harvard paleontologist Megan Whitney recently shared her discoveries with dinosaur fans at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science.

She says when dinosaur hunters dig deep into the fossil record, they never know what they may find. "They are truly stories of a kind of happy circumstance," said Whitney.

Those happy circumstances led her to look beneath the surface of bones. Thin slices of those bone samples are placed under a microscope, often with eye popping results. "Pretty pictures," said Whitney. "Most of my work is taking very pretty pictures."

She says teeth, tumors, trauma and evidence of arthritis act like a storybook recording hundreds of millions of years back in time. "We can pick up things like cancer, arthritis even – in bones of animals like dinosaurs," she said.

Whitney says a tumor she found in one sample is also the most common tumor found in human mouths today. "And that’s a pretty remarkable amount of time for this tumor to afflict lots of different kinds of animals including ourselves," she said.

As a student, Whitney enjoyed science classes, but she could not imagine being a paleontologist digging up bones and studying fossils. Then her life plans changed.

Whitney said, "Like a lot of people I know that kind of have that 'ah-ha moment,' it was a professor. She said, 'I know you don’t like dinosaurs, but come to research with me and we’ll see how it goes,' and as it turns out, it was an absolute perfect fit."

Now she hopes to inspire students in places like the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences with that same dream.