THE WONDERS OF SLIME BY DENNIS ARP
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CHAPMAN FORWARD
The first time she saw one, Lauren Friend ’19 was repelled. “Maybe even disgusted,” she says. But over time, she has developed a healthy respect for her research subject, the humble hagfish, which despite its slimy appearance and scavenging nature wiggles its way into the hearts of researchers by steering them toward scientific breakthroughs. “You have to appreciate what they can teach us,” the biochemistry major says. Friend and her Chapman University student colleagues in the marine research lab of Douglas Fudge, Ph.D., have dived deeply into the bottom-dwelling world of this intriguing creature. Fudge has been hooked ever since he was a grad student. He considered focusing his research on squid, “but in the end, hagfish slime was something I couldn’t resist,” he says.
