Who is Greg Florant?
Using Hibernating Marmots to Discover New Facts About Obesity
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 allowed him to spend most of his free-time watching birds and
mammals in the foothills. He also spent a lot of time fishing. Greg was
always fascinated by animals and wanted to know how they survived in their
different environments.
When he was 14, Greg worked at the Palo Alto Jr.
Museum and took care of the birds of prey (like eagles, hawks, falcons).
Studying birds of prey was a hobby of his. He even became a falconer
(trainer of falcons) and practiced falconry for a while. Greg also had the
opportunity to study many other different animals while working for the
museum, which got him interested in the subject of science.
Getting His Feet Wet in Science
Greg chose to study science because it was a subject
area that was fairly objective and people couldn’t question your answer.
Not to mention, it was more fun than math. Greg also enjoyed running
experiments and testing his ideas. He had excellent science teachers
throughout high school. He always knew he would go to college and was even
president of his high school’s Future Teacher’s Club.
The best part of high school was when he was given an
opportunity to work with a professor in biology at the University of
California, at Berkeley. There he worked on the lipid properties of bird
eggs and helped to do some of the research that demonstrated the
pesticides were causing the thinning of the shells of bird eggs,
particularly the peregrine falcon. During his senior year in high school,
Greg actually got a paper published with the professor from Berkeley.
While in the UC Berkeley library one summer, Greg met a chemistry
professor who recruited him to go to Cornell University in New York. Greg
applied to Cornell and was accepted. He completed his Biology degree in
1973.
Deciding on a Career
Both in high school and in 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 an academic career
was his best option. That meant graduate school and a PhD degree. In
trying to decide where to go to school, it was Dr. Paul Ehrlich who
recruited him to Stanford University. Greg moved back to California,
attended Stanford, and received his PhD degree in 1978. Greg feels that it
was only through hard work and perseverance that he has been able to
achieve his goals. It also helped a great deal that he had much support
from his family and many of his teachers.
Dr. Florant 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. He
is currently a Professor there. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate
students, as well as having both undergraduate and graduate students help
out in the lab doing research. He also serves on various university
committees and helps with out-reach programs in his community and
nationwide.
Hibernation and Obesity
Dr. Florant’s research focuses on energy metabolism
in animals. He is investigating how animals store fat and then use that
fat to survive under environmentally harsh conditions, specifically winter
hibernation. Animals that hibernate, such as 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 Work
When 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.
Advice to Graduate Students
Pick the area of physiology that most fascinates you.
Ask questions and suggest experiments. Do a lot of reading about the
subject. Don’t be afraid of failing! That’s why it’s called “Research”…not
discovery! Learn from your mistakes but keep moving forward by ruling out
possibilities. This is the way good science works. Make sure you have a
mentor who listens to you and questions your hypotheses so that you learn
how to set up experiments to test them correctly.
Recent Publications
1. Hoehn, K.L., S.F. Hudachek, S.A. Summers, and G.L.
Florant. Seasonal, tissue-specific regulation of AKT/protein kinase B and
glycogen synthase in hibernators.
Am. J. Physiol. Regul. Integr. Comp. Physiol. 286: R498-R504, 2004.
2. Cordain, L., B.A.
Watkins, G.L. Florant, M. Kehler, L. Rogers, and Y. Li. Fatty acid
analysis of wild ruminant tissues: Evolutionary implications for reducing
diet-related chronic disease tissues. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 556:
181-191, 2002.
3. Florant, G.L., V.L.
Hill, and M. D. Ogilvie. Circadian rhythms of body temperature in
laboratory and field marmots (Marmota flaviventris). In: Life in the
Cold, edited byG. Heldmaier and M. Klingenspor. Berlin: Springer,
2000, pp.223-233.
4. Pulawa, L.K., and G.L.
Florant. The effects of caloric restriction on the body composition and
hibernation of the golden-mantled ground squirrel (Spermophilus lateralis).
Physiol. Biochem. Zool. 73: 538-546, 2000.
5. Florant, G.L. Lipid
metabolism in hibernators: The importance of essential fatty acids.
Amer. Zool. 38: 331-341, 1999.
6. Wang, P., P.D. Walter, B.G. Bhat, G.L. Florant,
and R.A. Coleman.
Seasonal changes in enzymes of lipogenesis and triacylglycerol synthesis
in the golden-mantle ground squirrel (Spermophilus lateralis). Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 118B (2): 261-267,
1997.
7. Thorpe, C.R., P.K. Ram, and G.L. Florant.
Diet alters metabolic rate in the yellow-bellied marmot during
hibernation. Physiol. Zool. 67(5):1213-1229, 1994.
8. Florant, G.L., L.
Hester, S. Ameenuddin, and D.A. Rintoul. The effect of a low essential
fatty acid diet on hibernation in marmots.
Am. J. Physiol. 264 (Reg. Integ. Comp. Physiol. 33):
R747-R753, 1993.
9. Wilson, B.E., S. Deeb,
and G.L. Florant. Seasonal changes in hormone-sensitive and lipoprotein
lipase mRNA concentrations in marmot white adipose tissue.
Am. J. Physiol. 262 (Reg. Integ. Comp. Physiol. 37):
R177-R181, 1992.
|
|
