J. Patrick A Malone | Walden University (original) (raw)

In 1998 I assumed a faculty transgenics position at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, under Nobel laureate Dr. Stanley Prusiner who explained the self-replicating property of scrapie prions. The mutant prion was identified as the causative agent in bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and the inherited variety is known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

I later decided to complete a Masters degree in Education to develop a thesis around whether nonhuman great apes demonstrate the ability to possess culture in natural settings. I reasoned that teaching is the fundamental requirement for cultural transmission because observational learning does not include the process of assessment that necessarily limits degrees of freedom. So, I decided to became a master educator, in both the theory and the practice, in order to possess the appropriate framework to assess whether great apes 'teach'. You may enjoy a video segment documenting teaching in chimpanzees that took 5 years to compile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IoZQ\_GO71A

I have enjoyed time with the sign language competent chimpanzees at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute in Ellensburg, Washington. More recently, I completed a study at the National Chimpanzee Sanctuary System, Chimp Haven, where I examined behavioral changes and habitat usage due to cold weather, as well as performed the statistical analysis for this and two prior research efforts at the sanctuary.

During 2010 - 2011, I accepted the roll of chimpanzee therapist, working with what may be the only clearly diagnostic autistic chimpanzee, Elia, at the Jeunes Animaux Confisques au Katanga (JACK), a chimpanzee sanctuary in the Lubumbashi Zoo, Democratic Republic of Congo. Please enjoy a video segment documenting the therapeutic intervention I developed for her over the last year by entering the following web address into your web browser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ-Pq6slH3Q

Working with Elia inspired me to explore the neurogenetic underpinnings of developmental disorder and it seems that I may have isolated the genetic mechanism responsible for predisposition.

http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/2/2/2158244012444281

Following the publication of this study, I completed a comparative genetic analysis that follows the progression of the highly pleiotropic candidate gene through evolution, using the genomes of representative vertebrates for proxy.

http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/3/2/2158244013484476
Supervisors: Dr. Christos Constantinidis
Address: (US mobile) 1 541 250 2592
(UK mobile) +44 (0) 79 4649 6919

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