Insects and diseases cause significant alterations to native plant communities in Alaska. Dominant tree and shrub species across Alaska are subject to damage, defoliation, and mortality due to a variety of disease agents (wood decay and canker fungi, root disease, etc.) and native insects (bark beetles and woodborers, sawflies, leaf miners, etc.). Large-scale defoliation and mortality of dominant boreal forest communities can result in cascading effects on plant communities and wildlife and can even alter salmon spawning habitats. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) conducts annual forest damage aerial surveys using fixed-wing aircraft along predetermined routes across Alaska#8217;s forests. Insect damage within one to two miles on either side of the flight path is recorded by drawing polygons onto 1:250,000 scale USGS topographic maps or a digital elevation model. Some damage observations included an assessment of severity, which for this assessment was standardized to three categories: high (greater than 50% of treesshrubs affected), moderate (approximately 50% of treesshrubs affected), and low (less than 50% of treesshrubs affected). Recorded damage polygons were necessarily noticeable from a flying aircraft, generally indicating that they were areas of at least 10% mortality or defoliation (Juday et al. 2005).

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a hematologic cancer characterized by accumulation of malignant plasma cells in the bone marrow. To date, no definitive cure exists for MM and resistance to current treatments is one of the major challenges of this disease. The DNA helicase BLM, whose depletion or mutation causes the cancer-prone Bloom’s syndrome (BS), is a central factor of DNA damage repair by homologous recombination (HR) and genomic stability maintenance. Using independent cohorts of MM patients, we identified that high expression of BLM is associated with a poor outcome with a significant enrichment in replication stress signature. We provide evidence that chemical inhibition of BLM by the small molecule ML216 in HMCLs (human myeloma cell lines) leads to cell cycle arrest and increases apoptosis, likely by accumulation of DNA damage. BLM inhibition synergizes with the alkylating agent melphalan to efficiently inhibit growth and promote cell death in HMCLs. Moreover, ML216 treatment re-sensitizes melphalan-resistant cell lines to this conventional therapeutic agent. Altogether, these data suggest that inhibition of BLM in combination with DNA damaging agents could be of therapeutic interest in the treatment of MM, especially in those patients with high BLM expression and/or resistance to melphalan.

Insects and diseases cause significant alterations to native plant communities in Alaska. Dominant tree and shrub species across Alaska are subject to damage, defoliation, and mortality due to a variety of disease agents (wood decay and canker fungi, root disease, etc.) and native insects (bark beetles and woodborers, sawflies, leaf miners, etc.). Large-scale defoliation and mortality of dominant boreal forest communities can result in cascading effects on plant communities and wildlife and can even alter salmon spawning habitats. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) conducts annual forest damage aerial surveys using fixed-wing aircraft along predetermined routes across Alaska#8217;s forests, with up to 25% of the total forested area surveyed each year. Insect damage within one to two miles on either side of the flight path is recorded by drawing polygons onto 1:250,000 scale USGS topographic maps or a digital elevation model (DEM) (FS-R10-FHP 2012, 2013). Damage observed has been attributed with severity in three categories: high, moderate, and low. From 1999 to 2013, the period for which survey flight lines are available, approximately 105,545 km2, or 46% of the study area, was surveyed. We standardized all annual insect and disease damage datasets to a single format with forest type corresponding to coarse vegetation classes. All annual datasets were then merged into a single dataset covering observations from 1989 to 2013. Data from 2009 to 2013 was then seperated out into this dataset. This dataset provides part of the response to MQ 29. The defoliation of birch, which was uncommon in the 1990s and early 2000s, has become problematic within the past 5 years, caused largely by birch leaf roller. Birch defoliation in the past 5 years has been concentrated near McGrath, Holy Cross, and Aniak, and in the southeastern portion of the study area around Port Alsworth and Nondalton. Tamarack defoliation and mortality caused by larch sawfly and eastern larch beetle have both declined to nearly undetectable (by aerial survey) levels recently, with very little activity of either agent observed within the past 5 years. Similarly, spruce defoliation caused by spruce budworm has declined drastically.