A Sting Operation
You have to love a guy who gets animated, even passionate, when he talks about jellyfish and sea slugs. And Colby biology students do love Associate Professor of Biology Paul Greenwood. "He's always throwing in a joke, and his enthusiasm is contagious," said Christopher Sullivan '97, who's had Greenwood for three courses.
It's one thing to hear Greenwood describe how osmotic pressure caused by ion replacement provides the propulsion when jellyfish and anemones fire off their stingers, known as nematocysts. It's another thing to see a trim, bearded professor in a necktie crouching in front of a class with his hands over his head to demonstrate that that stinging mechanism erupts more quickly (10 microseconds) and with faster acceleration (40,000 g's) than almost anything known in the animal kingdom.
"You should be saying, WHOA!" he prompted more than 100 students at a special departmental lecture for biology majors. "The Biology of Nematocysts: A Good Beach Day Ruined" was the lecture title, and right up front Greenwood flashed a colorful photo of a sea anemone onto the giant projection screen in Olin 01. "Look at that critter," he said reverently (and only slightly self-mockingly). "How could you not be in love with it."
While Greenwood's presentation is playful, his research is serious and his science sound. Greenwood studies cnidarians (the "c" is silent)--the phylum of invertebrate marine creatures that includes coral, jellyfish, anemones and the Portuguese man-of-war. More specifically, he studies their microscopic stinging mechanisms.
Trying to understand how and why nematocysts function, Greenwood contributes to a general body of knowledge about biology that helps scientists interpret how a wide spectrum of organisms function. Currently he is working on a previously undiscovered calcium-binding protein that he and his students identified in nematocysts. Calcium-binding proteins also show up in human muscle tissue and act as metabolic regulators.
Characterizing the newly identified calcium-binding protein will be a major focus of work that Greenwood and student research assistants pursue under a new fellowship at Colby. He is the inaugural Dr. Charles C. and Pamela W. Leighton Research Fellow--a title he will hold for three years. The fellowship provides resources to continue research funded by Colby departmental grants and grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
Greenwood, who earned his Ph.D. at Florida State University in 1987, says research is an integral part of his teaching. "Student research assistants are really partners in what I do; I have more experience, but they are capable of coming up with just-as-good ideas," he said. One of his jobs as the teacher and senior partner is convincing students of their own capabilities and getting them to state their ideas. Toward that end he invokes a favorite Albert Einstein quote: "For an idea that does not seem at first insane there is no hope."
This year his research partners include Josh Oeltjen '97, Ted Rowan '97, Cynthia Lohmann '98 and Stephanie Massaro '97. Each works with Greenwood on a different aspect of his research.
Students "doing" science is so central to the learning process that it has become a cliché. More than just doing science "you have to feel science," Greenwood said. "You have to know the smack that you feel when something doesn't work before you can make a breakthrough--or at least before you can appreciate it when you do make a breakthrough."
Increasing numbers of students are feeling that smack. In the 10 years that Greenwood has taught at Colby, interest in biology has exploded--it now rivals English as the most popular major. A liberal arts college is a great place to study the sciences, Greenwood says, because of the attention students get from the faculty and because of the direct access they have to scientific equipment that may be off-limits even to many graduate students at large universities. He also noted that disproportionate numbers of people entering Ph.D. programs in the natural sciences are coming out of liberal arts schools.
As his Olin 01 address ends, Greenwood admits that his lecture had very little to do with going to the beach and that he put the beach in his title because "I just wanted you to come here." In conclusion, though, he weaves in an elaborate joke involving stinging jellyfish, two cans of beer and the use of urea-based compounds to break down the proteins of the venom. Students leave laughing--and fired up about the why and the how of marine biology.--Stephen Collins '74