麻豆影院

University of Colorado President George Norlin took the lectern at East High School in Denver to ruminate on the meaning of life. It was 1927, a decade since the Americans had entered the 鈥淕reat War.鈥�

Hope, the president said, is an incurable attribute of human beings, and hope is nowhere better cultivated than at the university. Here, scholars devote their lives to the pursuit of discovery and innovation.

鈥淟ove of truth, a passion to know for ourselves and to set that knowledge working to create a world more kindly, more beautiful and more hospitable to human beings鈥攄oes not this give a zest and a meaning to our lives?鈥�

This love of truth is still evident today among scholars and researchers across our campus. Consider just two examples:

Hubert Yin says he was a bona fide 鈥渟cience nerd鈥� in high school. He thought the epitome of cool was biochemistry.

It was the only science that could explain life at the molecular level, he felt. In biochemistry was truth and beauty, beauty in truth. Now, Yin is an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the 麻豆影院.

Yin seeks an elusive answer to a critically important question: How, exactly, does the Epstein-Barr virus 鈥渒nock on the door鈥� of a human cell membrane?

The virus has been known to cause cancer since 1964, and it is found in 95 percent of humans. But scientists do not yet know the mechanism by which the virus enters the cell. Once it enters, the virus hijacks the cells鈥� normal functioning.

Yin is tackling this problem in a collaborative effort involving massively complex computer simulations of the Latent Membrane Protein, which has an inflammatory response to the virus.

Working with fellow CU Biofrontiers Institute faculty member Natalie Ahn and CU-麻豆影院 biologist Jennifer Martin, Yin is striving to predict how that protein will react to potential drugs.

The task is monumental.

鈥淭rying to achieve something that took nature millions of years to develop is an outstanding intellectual challenge,鈥� says Yin. 鈥淎nd multidisciplinary approaches are the means we must take to approach this problem.鈥� (Read more about his work听.)

Matt Sponheimer, meanwhile, is an associate professor of anthropology who has helped increase human understanding of what ancient hominins ate. Research on ancient hominin diet, he notes, is the study of 鈥渉ow we became us.鈥�

Using sophisticated analyses of dental microwear and carbon isotopes, Sponheimer is helping to clarify that picture.

Hominin anatomy gives clues to ancient diets.听Paranthropus boisei, for instance, had huge jaws, big teeth, and massive muscles of mastication. This led to the idea that听Paranthropus boisei听ate hard foods like nuts and seeds along with low-nutrient, high-fiber foods鈥攕tuff that required a lot of chewing.

However, a steadily growing volume of data indicates that hominin anatomy tells us only what they were able to eat, not necessarily what they did eat. This year, Sponheimer was part of a team of researchers that found听Paranthropus boisei, nicknamed 鈥淣utcracker Man,鈥� probably didn鈥檛 eat nuts. Instead, the hominin predominantly ate tropical grasses or sedges.

鈥淣utcracker Man鈥檚鈥� diet was almost the same as that of ancient zebras, pigs, warthogs and hippos, the National Science Foundation, which sponsored the research, reported.

Sponheimer, who churns out colorful phrases as routinely as important journal articles, put it this way: 鈥淔rankly, we didn鈥檛 expect to find the primate equivalent of a cow dangling from a remote twig of our family tree.鈥�

As Discover magazine put it, 鈥淥ur ancient cousin 鈥楴utracker Man鈥� actually ate like a cow.鈥�

Sponheimer says these findings were unexpected. 鈥淏ut this is one of the fun things about science鈥攏ature frequently reminds us that there is much we don鈥檛 yet understand.鈥� (Read more about his work听.)

I recount these examples because they encapsulate 鈥渄iscovery and innovation,鈥� one of the 鈥渇our pillars of excellence and impact鈥� the university is highlighting during its comprehensive fund-raising campaign, called听.

鈥淒iscovery and innovation鈥� is a slogan, but one with underlying substance. It aptly describes the work of colleagues like Hubert Yin and Matt Sponheimer.

Among CU-麻豆影院 faculty members, Yin and Sponheimer are outstanding. They are not unique. Across the campus and throughout disciplines ranging from the natural sciences to the social sciences and the arts and humanities, our scholars and researchers are constantly enlarging the scope of what we know.

Like the scholars of Norlin鈥檚 day, they show a profound love of truth, a real passion to enlarge human knowledge to create a world 鈥渕ore kindly, more beautiful and more hospitable to human beings.鈥�

Making intellectual strides in the world of today, they inspire hope for the challenges of tomorrow. In the academic world, there can be no higher praise.

Todd Gleeson, professor in the department of integrative physiology, was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at CU 麻豆影院 from 2002 to 2012.

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