In a single day’s work, Prof. W. B. Currie, animal science had chartered an airplane, battled a flood, and stood knee-deep in thousands of sheep placentas. With a grin, Currie recalls an Australian experiment synchronizing 10,000 sheep pregnancies at once.

Using a syringe full of semen, the sheep were all impregnated on the same day so they would all give birth around the same time using a syringe full of semen. The researchers Currie worked with then waited five months for nature to take its course. The scientists then gave the sheep a hormone injection that induces pregnancy in 24 hours.

Prof. W. B. Currie of animal scienceBut all bets were off when Currie awakened the next morning to find Northern Australia flooded. In desperation, Currie was forced to charter a plane to get to the field in time for 10,000 bloody lambs, placenta and all, to drop from their wailing mothers. As both a researcher and one of Cornell’s animal science professors, this native New Zealander has learned to embrace the unexpected.

After his post-doctoral work in Australia, Currie moved briefly to Canada before coming to Cornell. Moving to Ithaca, Currie was able to resume teaching, appreciating the significance of presenting science in interesting and unusual ways. As a student, Currie was interested in plant science until the endlessly morose drone of his professor who Currie described as having “no interest in teaching what he was doing” left him bored with the subject. Currie switched fields, excited after listening to an eloquent animal science professor describe the more animated field.

“Research is like a rollercoaster where there are not many high points and lots of low points and getting through the low points or the low phases can be very trying,” he explained. “What’s worked for me over the years is to have at least two or three unrelated projects going simultaneously and when your down in one of these times when nothing seems to be working just putting that project aside for a period of time and getting on to something else increases the chances that your going to get one of these highs.”

Once, Currie was working in a research group with both goats and sheep, to study how a fetus triggers labor in the mother, the initiation of milk production and the maturation of the fetal lungs.

“I was in a world class lab and there were only three big research groups in the world doing this work at this time,” he remarked excitedly. “The fetus was setting up the scene for life after birth.”

With this research, the group found that glucocorticoids, naturally occurring steroid hormones, put a lubricating “surface acting agent” (surfactant) in the lungs. The surfactant lowers the surface tension of the lungs allowing them to expand and contract with ease in concert with the ribcage. When the ribs expand, the lungs do to, and air is taken into the body. Clinical studies elsewhere then proved that in women who were likely to go into extreme premature labor, a shot of glucocorticoids could introduce this surfactant to the infant lungs. This would allow respiration in an infant who would otherwise suffocate in a doctor’s arms.

Throughout his career, Currie has worked with over twelve different species of animals, conducting studies with everything from cows to the little brown bat. It’s not the final results of years of research that thrill Currie the most, ir’s the unexpected surprises that trigger his curiosity.

One such event occurred when the scientist plunged a syringe full of a left over chemical into a strip of rabbit uterus. Currie peered under a microscope, expecting no reaction. Barely a moment later, the strip violently contracted, snapping apart from the force. Startled, Currie repeated the process several times, constantly expecting the contractions to be an anomaly, but the effect persisted.

“The result was totally unexpected and because of my curiosity I started wondering why that happened,” he recalled. “It occurred to me that I really aught to do a control.”

Wanting to see what chemical within that syringe actually caused the contractions, Currie placed only the buffer — the useless bits of fluid that add volume and stability — in one syringe and the active chemical in another. After once more plunging the syringe in, Currie realized it was actually the buffer causing this reaction. “A surprise came out of an experiment and that surprise turned out to be the most valuable part — totally unexpected.”

This discovery led to the realization of the role that cAMP, a naturally occurring chemical messenger, plays in uterine contractions. The very same contractions that around 4 million women experience each year while giving birth.

Currently, Currie is in collaboration with a colleague, researching a hormone connected to type-II adult obesity-related diabetes. This hormone enhances the body’s sensitivity to insulin, which breaks down simple sugars and is harmful to an individual’s health when he’s overweight or obese.

Even with these research accomplishments, Currie finds teaching the most enjoyable part of his work at Cornell. He currently lectures for AS1100: Domestic Animal Biology.

“The emphasis has been on teaching for me,” said Currie. “So many of the research experiences find their way into examples that I use in the classroom and many of the questions in the classroom actually find their way back into the research.”