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Paul Alan Cox

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other people with the same name, seePaul Cox (disambiguation).
Paul Alan Cox
Born
Salt Lake City, Utah
OccupationEthnobotanist
Known forFounder ofSeacology

Paul Alan Coxis an Americanethnobotanistwhose scientific research focuses on discovering new medicines by studying patterns of wellness and illness among indigenous peoples.[1]Cox was born in Salt Lake City in 1953.[2]

Education

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After receiving his B.S. in Botany and Philosophy from Brigham Young University, he was awarded aFulbright Fellowshipto read for his M.Sc. in Ecology at theUniversity of Wales at Bangor.He received aDanforth Fellowshipand aNational Science Foundation Graduate Fellowshipfor hisPh.D.studies atHarvard Universityin Biology where, twice, he was awarded theBowdoin Prize,a distinction he shares withRalph Waldo Emerson.He was appointed as a Miller Fellow at theMiller Institutefor Basic Research in Science at theUniversity of California, Berkeleyand as aUniversity of MelbourneResearch Fellow inAustralia.Early in his academic career he was named a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator byRonald Reagan,and used the research funds to pursue his interests in mathematical biology and ethnobotany.

Career

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After serving as professor and dean atBrigham Young Universityhe became the firstKing Carl XVI GustafProfessor of Environmental Science at theSwedish Agricultural Universityand theUppsala University,a visiting professorship established by theSwedish Royal Academy of Sciences.

Cox (left) and village chiefFuiono Senio(right) won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1997 for their conservation efforts atFalealupoin Western Samoa

For seven years he was director of the Congressionally-charteredNational Tropical Botanical Garden(NTBG) inHawaiiandFlorida.Currently, he is executive director of the Brain Chemistry Labs,[3]inJackson Hole, Wyoming.

He is the author of over 220 scientific papers, reviews, and books and was chosen byTimemagazine as one of eleven "Heroes of Medicine" in 1997 for his search for newmedicines from plants.[4]

Evolutionary ecology

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Cox began his research inevolutionary ecologyas a student ofJohn L. Harperat theUniversity of Walesin Bangor by studyingdioecyin plants.[5]AtHarvard Universitywhere he served for four years as Teaching Fellow forE. O. Wilson,he studied how vertebrate pollination influenced breeding system evolution in tropical lianas.[6]Collaborating at Harvard with tropical botanistP. B. Tomlinson,at Berkeley withHerbert G. Baker,and Melbourne with Bruce Knox, he used mathematical search theory to analyze seagrass pollination[7]and later, with mathematicianJames Sethianused search theory to develop a new approach to the evolution of different size sperm and eggs, known asanisogamy,[8]a topic he continued to pursue with Japanese biologist Tatsuya Togashi.[9]He discovered with colleagues Sandra Banack and James Metcalf incyanobacteriaAEG, a hypothesized backbone of peptide nucleic acids in the pre-RNA worldearly in the earth's history.[10]They are studying possible health consequences of exposure to isomers of AEG and other cyanobacterial toxins,[11][12]includingbeta-Methylamino-L-alanine(BMAA).

Ethnobotany

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Although trained inevolutionary ecology,because of his fluency inPolynesian languages,Cox was encouraged by Harvard ProfessorRichard Evans Schultesto pursue ethnobotanical studies. He became increasingly focused onethnomedicineafter his mother died frombreast cancer.Subsequently, with his colleagues Gordon Cragg, Michael Boyd, and others at theNational Cancer Institute,they discovered theanti-HIV/AIDSproperties ofprostratinfound in the bark of the mamala tree of Samoa.[13][14]He was elected as president of theSociety for Economic Botanyand has been president of theInternational Society for Ethnopharmacology.Together with Michael Balick, he wrote,Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany.,[15]and for his ethnobotanical studies was awarded theE. K. Janaki AmmalMedal from India,[16]and the Eloise Payne Luquer Medal by theGarden Club of America.[17]He is a foreign member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry,[18]a Fellow of theLinnean Society of London,and appointed adjunct professor at theXishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Gardenby theChinese Academy of Sciences[19]and at the College of Pharmacy by theUniversity of Illinois, Chicago.[20]Currently, he is searching for a cure forALS,Alzheimer's,and other tangle diseases.[21][22][23]

Conservation

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In 1997 he received theGoldman Environmental Prizefor the conservation efforts described in his book,Nafanua: Saving the Samoan Rainforest(New York: W.H. Freeman), which has been translated intoGerman,Japanese,andSamoan.He speaks a variety of island languages and is internationally-renowned for his advocacy of indigenous peoples.[24]Cox lived with his family in the village ofFalealupoonSavai'iisland inSamoawhere he helped create a covenant with chiefs to protect their lowland rainforest from logging. In 1988, he was bestowed theNafanuamataichief title by Falealupo, one of the highest legendary titles in Samoa, in honor of his conservation efforts.[25]

Dr. Cox founded the environmental nonprofit organization,Seacology,located inBerkeley, California,which has preserved over 1.5 million acres of island forests and coral reefs, and was named a Laureate for the Prince's Prize for Innovative Philanthropy in 2015 byAlbert II, Prince of Monaco.

At the request of GovernorScott M. Mattheson,Cox helped defeat theMX missileproject proposed for Utah and Nevada, led the successful effort to establish the 50th U.S. National Park,The National Park of American Samoa,[25]and was a delegate to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Lausanne, Switzerland to protectflying foxspecies in Pacific islands.[26]

Faith

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As a member ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,Cox emerged as a prominent voice forbiological conservation.[27][28]He served amissioninSamoaand is active in his church.[29]

The standardauthor abbreviationP.A.Coxis used to indicate this person as the author whencitingabotanical name.[30]

References

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  1. ^Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany. New York:Scientific American Library/ W.H. Freeman (1997).
  2. ^Who's who in Frontier Science and Technology.Marquis Who's Who. 1984.ISBN9780837957012.
  3. ^"Brain Chemistry Labs The Institute for EthnoMedicine".Brain Chemistry Labs The Institute for EthnoMedicine.Retrieved2019-09-13.
  4. ^Christopher Hallowell.TIME: The Plant Hunter,(subscription required)October 1, 1997
  5. ^Cox, P (1981). "Niche partitioning between sexes of dioecious plants".The American Naturalist.117(3): 295–307.doi:10.1086/283707.S2CID84919076.
  6. ^Cox, P (1982). "Vertebrate pollination and the maintenance of dioecism in Freycinetia".The American Naturalist.120:65–80.doi:10.1086/283970.S2CID85352006.
  7. ^Cox, P (1993). "Water-pollinated plants".Scientific American.269(4): 68–74.doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1093-68.
  8. ^Cox, P; Sethian, J (1985)."Gamete motion, search, and the evolution of anisogamy, oogamy, and chemotaxis"(PDF).The American Naturalist.125:74–101.doi:10.1086/284329.S2CID85252653.
  9. ^Togashi, R; Cox, P (2011).The evolution of anisogamy: a fundamental phenomenon underlying sexual selection.Cambridge University Press.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511975943.ISBN9780511975943.
  10. ^"Scientists Discover Possible Building Blocks of Ancient Genetic Systems in Earth's Most Primitive Organisms".ScienceDaily.9 November 2012.
  11. ^"Are Toxins in Seafood Causing ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's? | DiscoverMagazine".Discover Magazine.Retrieved2019-09-13.
  12. ^Williams, Amy Bennett,Documentary about algae and public health debuts to sold-out crowd,Fort Myers News-Press, August 7, 2019
  13. ^Nafanua: Saving the Samoan Rainforest.New York: W.H. Freeman (1997).
  14. ^Cragg, G. M.; Newman, D. J. (2003). "Plants as a source of anti-cancer and anti-HIV agents".Annals of Applied Biology.143(2): 127–133.doi:10.1111/j.1744-7348.2003.tb00278.x.ISSN1744-7348.
  15. ^Balick, Michael; Cox, Paul (1996).Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany.Scientific American Library.
  16. ^"Prof. E. K. Janaki Ammal Medal, Society of Ethnobotany India | Ethnobotany | Botany".Scribd.Retrieved2019-09-13.
  17. ^"Medalists".gcamerica.org.Retrieved2019-09-13.
  18. ^http:// ksla.se/enRoyal Swedish Academy
  19. ^"Paul Alan Cox----Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, CAS".sourcedb.xtbg.cas.cn.Retrieved2019-09-13.
  20. ^"Faculty | College of Pharmacy | University of Illinois at Chicago".mcp.uic.edu.Retrieved2019-09-13.
  21. ^"Could This Radical New Approach to Alzheimer's Lead to a Breakthrough?".Fortune.Retrieved2019-09-13.
  22. ^Holtcamp, W (2012)."The emerging science of BMAA: do cyanobacteria contribute to neurodegenerative disease?".Environ. Health Perspect.120(3): A110–6.doi:10.1289/ehp.120-a110.PMC3295368.PMID22382274.
  23. ^Heinrichs, Jay (September 2016)."The Storied Man".Southwest The Magazine.Retrieved17 August2018.
  24. ^Will Tribal Knowledge Survive the Millennium?,Science Magazine
  25. ^abCongressional Record: Eni F.H. Faleomavaega
  26. ^"BATS Magazine Article: Landmark Legislation to Protect Flying Foxes".batcon.org.Retrieved2019-09-13.
  27. ^Woodruff, Alexandra L. (August–September 2000)."Being a Mormon Environmentalist".Canyon Country Zephyr.Archivedfrom the original on November 24, 2016.RetrievedFebruary 25,2017.
  28. ^"The Eternal Importance of Righteous Choices".churchofjesuschrist.org.Retrieved2019-09-13.
  29. ^Mormon Scholars Testify
  30. ^International Plant Names Index.P.A.Cox.

Bibliography

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