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Scientists meet to devise coral nomenclature by Dick Peterson Public Relations They say history repeats itself. And histologically speaking, so does the pursuit of science as seen last week in a microscope lab on the ground floor of the Walton Research Building on Sabin Street.   There 15 veterinary pathologists and coral histopathology investigators from a variety of institutions peered through illuminated lenses at the diseased tissue of microscopic animals responsible for the world’s great barrier reefs. Their mission: Devise a standardized nomenclature for conducting histopathological studies of coral.   Top from left: Drs. Valerie Bochsler,USGS National Wildlife Health Center, Madison Wis.; Sylvia Galloway, MUSC/NOAA NOS, Charleston; Russell Harley, MUSC; Taylor Reynolds, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,Md.; Esther Peters, TetraTech,Va.; Lou Sileo, USGS National Wildlife Health Center, Madison Wis.; Cheryl Woodley, NOAA NOS/MUSC; Carol Meteyer,USGS National Wildlife Health Center, Madison, Wis.; Shawn McLaughlin,NOAA/NOS Oxford, Md.; Esti Kramarsky-Winter,Tel Aviv University, Israel; Frank Morado, NOAA/NMFS, Seattle, Wa.; David Rotstein, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn.; and Thierry Work, USGS National Wildlife Health Center, Honolulu Field Station. They were doing with coral what 19th century scientists did with diseased human tissue once the microscope became a useful laboratory tool for research. They were naming what they saw, said Jim Nicholson, head of the research image core facility in MUSC’s Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.   He explained that just as many human diseases were originally named by the way they presented and were later given scientific names based on microscopic observation, coral diseases, like “white pox,” “black band” and “yellow blotch” deserve a scientific nomenclature to better facilitate investigation into the causes of coral death.   “We’re trying to incorporate and integrate the approaches to medical and veterinary medicine with studies in coral disease,” said Cheryl M. Woodley, Ph.D., of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Ocean Service. Woodley works at the NOAA Hollings Marine Laboratory and is a faculty member in the MUSC Marine Biomedicine & Environmental Science laboratory at Fort Johnson.   “Globally, coral reefs are dying in strategic places,” Woodley said, stressing the importance of the subsurface coastal formations as living protective barriers against storm damage to shorelines and as a habitat for fisheries. “Fish depend on coral reefs at various stages of their development, and fish provide an important food source and are especially critical for the economies of island nations.”   She said that 30 percent of the world’s coral reefs have been degraded, and about 80 percent of coral reefs in the Caribbean are affected, many by disease. “Yet we have seen diseased coral heal in places and now doing fine, but in other places not.”   The question is why.   She explained that coral seems to require a rather narrow window of environmental conditions such as water quality and temperature to thrive, making them sentinels of ocean health. And ocean health, she said, can impact human health.     Those who gathered July 12 through 14 for the MUSC-hosted Coral Histopathology Workshop share a common interest in the health of the world’s coral reefs even though many claim expertise in disciplines far afield from the study of coral health. “They are volunteers from all paths of life,” Woodley said. “We have veterinary pathologists, microbiologists, resource managers and biochemists, to name a few.”   The consortium was partially supported by NOAA’s Coral Conservation Program. Visit http://www.musc.edu/mbes/coral/.     Friday, July 22, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.