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Who is Greg Florant? Using Animals That Hibernate to Study Why People Get Fat Greg Florant was born in New York City, NY. However, at the age of 6 his family moved to Palo Alto, California. Living in California let him spend most of his free-time watching birds and mammals in the foothills. He also spent a lot of time fishing. Greg was always amazed by animals and wanted to know how they managed to live in their different environments. When he was 14, Greg had the chance to work at the Palo Alto Jr. Museum. His job was to take care of the birds of prey (like eagles, hawks, falcons). Studying birds of prey became a hobby of his. Greg also became a falconer (trainer of falcons) and practiced falconry for a while. While working at the museum, he was able to study many different kinds of animals. That’s how he became interested in science. Getting His Feet Wet in ScienceGreg chose to study science because it was a subject area that was based on facts. That meant people couldn’t question your answers. And it was more fun than math. Greg also enjoyed doing experiments and testing his ideas. He had excellent science teachers throughout high school who encouraged him. Greg always knew he would go on to college. He was even president of the Future Teacher’s Club in his high school. One of the best parts of his high school years was when Greg was given the chance to work with a college biology teacher in a lab at the University of California, at Berkeley. There Greg worked on bird eggs and helped to do some of the research that showed that the pesticides were causing the thinning of the shells of bird eggs, particularly those of the peregrine falcon. During his senior year in high school, he actually got an article published in a scientific magazine with the teacher from Berkeley. One summer when he was in the college library, Greg met a chemistry professor who told him about a school called Cornell University in New York. Greg decided to apply to Cornell and was accepted. He attended Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. and got his BS degree in Biology with an emphasis in Physiology from Cornell in 1973. Deciding on a CareerBoth in high school and college, Greg enjoyed learning about how biological systems work. He wanted to know more about how humans interact with our environment and how animals survive in different environments. That led him to study physiology. Greg wanted to be a good teacher and researcher, so he decided that a career as a college teacher would be the best choice for him. That meant he needed to go on to graduate school for a PhD degree. When he was trying to decide where to go for his PhD, it was another teacher who told him about Stanford University. So he moved back to California and went to school there. He received his PhD degree from Stanford in 1978. Greg got a job as a college teacher and achieved his career goals through hard work and perseverance. It also helped a great deal that he received a lot of support from his family and many of his teachers. Dr. Florant first taught at Swarthmore College (10 years) and Temple University (5 years) before accepting his current job in the Department of Biology at the Colorado State University in Ft. Collins. Dr. Florant is currently a Professor there. He teaches both undergraduates and graduate students and also has both undergraduates and graduate students working with him in his lab doing research. He also has committee work he needs to do, in addition to helping with out-reach programs to teach students at all different grade levels about science. Hibernation and ObesityDr. Florant studies how animals use the energy their body makes. He investigates how animals get fat and use that fat as energy to live under harsh conditions, like in winter when food is not readily available in the environment and animals either have to migrate, find some food, or hibernate. Animals that hibernate under go torpor bouts where body temperature drops very close to air temperature which can be near zero at times. But the animals rewarm from time to time but do not eat. They survive on the fat that they have stored in their body. He hopes that understanding how these animals live off their fat and don’t eat, will help us figure out why some people get fat and stay that way. Dr. Florant’s research focuses on energy metabolism in animals. He is studying how animals get fat and then use that fat to survive under harsh conditions, specifically winter, when food is not readily available in the environment and animals either have to migrate, find food, or hibernate. Animals that hibernate, like the marmots Dr. Florant studies, under go torpor bouts where body temperature drops very close to air temperature which can be near zero at times. But the animals re-warm from time to time but do not eat. They survive on the fat that they have stored in their body. He hopes that by studying this question he may someday discover new mechanisms that will help scientists understand obesity in humans and how to treat it. Away From WorkWhen Dr. Florant isn’t in the lab or classroom, he loves to go fishing, hiking, bird-watching and biking. Colorado is a great place for all those activities. Dr. Florant also does volunteer work as much as he can,
particularly in elementary schools. |
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