He calls it “fire in the gut.” It’s the excitement, the burning drive to work through a problem and see the solution. It’s staying up at night, turning something over and over in your head and feeling exhilarated when you finally come up with an answer, says Chris Hardin, Professor and Chair of the Nutritional Sciences Department.

Chris Hardin has two principal lines of research in his laboratory. The first is a close examination of the way the human body metabolizes sugar, which Hardin has been examining for twenty years. For the second and more recent project, Hardin seeks to develop a better way to determine whether certain drugs associated with statin-therapy (for high cholesterol) are causing dangerous muscle pain and weakness.

Hardin’s research will have a number of applications down the road. His first project will affect the way we understand and treat diabetes. His second will help individuals taking drugs called statins to alleviate high cholesterol. He hopes to find some indicator in the human body that will tell whether the particular statins a patient takes are doing permanent damage to his/her muscles.