YSM Issue 97.1

BY YUSUF RASHEED
What do you think of when you hear the phrase ‘climate
change’? Perhaps it’s magnificent glaciers melting away into
nothingness, or tall pine trees toppling like dominoes as they
go up in flames. Maybe it’s the greenhouse gas emissions from poorly
regulated factories or the Atlantic Ocean slowly rising over Florida to
swallow it up. For Yale professor Karla Neugebauer, the first image that
pops into her mind is one of biochemistry.
Neugebauer, a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry
and director of the Yale Center for RNA Science and Medicine, teaches
the spring semester class “Biochemistry and Our Changing Climate.”
The course focuses on understanding and finding solutions to climate
change through the lens of biochemistry. When asked about the focus,
Neugebauer used one of her lecture topics to illustrate her point. “In
2016, the Great Barrier Reef spiked a fever. It was literally forty-five
degrees Celsius [113 degrees Fahrenheit], resulting in coral bleaching,
which happens when the water temperature goes up too high. But a
biochemist would ask, ‘Why? What’s the molecular mechanism? And
what happened in between?’” she said. Using our understanding of
biochemistry, we now know that elevated temperatures can promote the
overproduction of reactive oxygen species, unstable molecules that react
readily in the cell, damaging DNA, RNA, and proteins and even causing
cell death. According to Neugebauer, understanding the molecular
mechanisms that underlie this would allow us to look into evolving coral
symbiotes that are capable of tolerating higher temperatures—or in other
words, to innovate in the face of climate change. This is just one example
of the many lecture topics Neugebauer covers in the class, including
extremophiles, soil health, and forest fires.
Neugebauer’s motivation for creating the class, which began in the
fall of 2021, was to show students that different fields of study must
come together to solve the world’s most pressing issues. “Everyone has
something to offer. I was concerned that college students didn’t really
see the point of digging into a discipline when the world is falling apart,”
CROSS
BIOCHEMISTRY AND
OUR CHANGING CLIMATE
Neugebauer said. “So I think that it’s very important for people
to understand that it’s still very important to learn a discipline,
whether it’s acting or music or biochemistry—all of those
things are going to be applicable to helping humanity face the
challenges ahead.”
The class is divided into one lecture and one discussion
section every week. The lecture introduces the week’s topic
and places its biology in the context of climate change, while
the discussion section offers the opportunity to explore this
further through the week’s assigned original research paper. In
the spring 2024 semester, which is Neugebauer’s third iteration
of the course, there are thirty-eight students, the majority of
which are MB&B majors, including seven BS/MS students.
Other majors include EVST, MCDB, and non-STEM fields
such as English and Philosophy.
The class also features several other unique programs and
assignments. Neugebauer takes the students on a field trip to
East Rock Park, where they go birding and catch tardigrades,
which they bring back to her house to observe over pizza.
“There are a lot of people in biochemistry who don’t interact
with living things, which is crazy. Your interest is in biology,
so you should go out in nature and have a look,” she said.
Each student is also required to complete a mini-review,
in which Professor Neugebauer asks them to write a short
paper on a biochemical issue pertinent to climate change.
This is then presented as a five-minute flash talk at the class’s
Climate Biochemistry Summit, the culmination of students’
research. “We get to hear all forty projects, and everybody is
working on something completely different. Some are more
chemistry-oriented, […] and others are more environmentoriented,”
she said.
As Neugebauer looks ahead at the ways that biochemistry
may inform climate change, there is one topic she is particularly
interested in: carbon drawdown, the process by which carbon
is sequestered, or stored, in the long-lived products that we
need on the planet, such as cement. “Manmade stuff is already
over half the mass of the planet. We need to build more
buildings because there’s gonna be a ton more human beings
on the planet by 2050,” she said. “If we build them out of the
current building materials, that’s going to take up the entire
carbon budget.” This means that buildings can no longer be
made out of concrete and steel. “The answer is to build things
out of massive wood because it has carbon dioxide in it and
thus can’t go back into the air,” she said.
“Biochemistry and our Changing Climate” is offered in
the spring semester and is an MB&B elective. Neugebauer
welcomes all students to register. ■
ROADS
ART BY LUNA AGUILAR
www.yalescientific.org
March 2024 Yale Scientific Magazine 39