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By Denise H. Horton
Art Grider is a basic researcher.
His research focuses on zinc, a nutrient that plays a role in how more than 300 different  proteins and enzymes work.
Most recently he has focused on how zinc is taken into cells, and the role it plays in nutrient-gene interactions. He’s also working with a colleague in the College of Veterinary Medicine to explore how dietary zinc supplements affect cognition and memory.
But through a serendipitous meeting between two long-time friends--one of them Family and Consumer Sciences Dean Sharon Nickols--Grider is balancing his basic research with an applied project that will take him to Ecuador in May.
“When I was working as a post-doc at the University of Florida, I was involved in developing an immunoassay that measures the levels of a particular protein that’s found in red blood cells,” Grider explains. “It turns out this measurement may be more sensitive at determining a person’s zinc status than other tests.”
When he left Florida for a faculty position at the University of Texas, he began studying zinc uptake into cells.
In August 1996, Grider arrived at UGA. At about the same time, Dean Nickols was visiting Margaret Wiegle, her friend and former University of Illinois colleague, in Ecuador.
Wiegle, now at Virginia Tech, is studying the relationship between nutrition and successful pregnancy outcomes, as well as the possible relationship between zinc deficiency and specific medical problems.
She had read about Grider’s work, but didn’t know how to contact him.
Nickols was happy to provide the contact information for one of her newest faculty members.
“That’s what got the ball rolling,” Grider says. “Margaret asked me to be a consultant on the project, funded by the Inter-American Bank, and we did a lot of work by e-mail. I traveled to Ecuador for a week last spring as a UGA International Fellow through the Office of Instructional Support and Development, which provides funding for travel, and will go back for two or three weeks in May to get a better sense of the specific projects we’re going to do and to look into the opportunities for grants and possibilities for student exchanges.”
Grider describes himself as a long-time “science nerd,” but a conversation with him includes references to jazz, philosophy and sports.
The fact that Grider played college football surprises few--he’s 6 feet 6 inches tall. But his musical talents aren’t as well known on campus.
He started on piano and took up the alto saxophone in junior high, but quit band when he began playing high school sports.
“I took it up again when I was in graduate school,” he says. “I found some teaching programs that helped me learn how to play jazz and I switched from alto to tenor sax. I don’t practice very much, but I enjoy playing at church. Playing the saxophone is a wonderful, cheap hobby.”
Not surprisingly, Grider believes that well-roundedness is central to a good education.
“I had a rigorous liberal arts education,” he says. “There used to be an understanding that educated people would have a broad base of knowledge, and out of that knowledge came the great discoveries of the 20th century.
“Now, everyone’s so hyper about getting their kids here and there and into this and that,” says the father of three. “I think we all need the opportunity to dream and develop our imagination.”
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