Episode Details

EP 2-4 Hud Freeze

Wendy Corr:

Well, hey there folks, welcome to The Roundup. We're a Cowboy State Daily podcast that focuses on interesting people in the Cowboy State.

I have to say, just as a disclaimer, the gentleman we're going to interview today, he doesn't live in the cowboy state, but the work that he did in the Cowboy State has revolutionized - and I am not understating this - has revolutionized medicine, biomedical research, and affects each of us in our everyday lives. So I am so thrilled to be able to introduce Hudson Freeze, Dr Hudson Freeze. Hud Freeze spent some very formative time in Yellowstone National Park here in 1966, and he's got some amazing stories to tell.

But first, I just want to say, Hud, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. You and I have a real interesting, interesting and great, great connection as to how we met, but, but good, good day Hud.

Hudson Freeze:

Wendy, it's so good to be on your program here, and I'm glad that I can be the New Year's Baby.

Wendy Corr:

You are the New Year's Baby. You're ringing in the New Year with us. Fantastic. I have to a little bit of backstory here. So my music partner, my life partner, Dan Miller, Dan and Hud grew up two blocks from each other in the tiny town of Garrett, Indiana, and they then reconnected in California. And they were, they were great friends, and just bummed around Southern California for a while, right?

Hudson Freeze:

That sounds about correct.

Wendy Corr:

While Hud was getting, getting his doctorate and working on all the things that have led him to his career, Dan was being an actor, and he was taking acting lessons, he was working there. So the two of you have this great connection, and I got to meet Hud in person a few years ago.

The work, Hud, that you have done, the work that you have done, has absolutely changed lives and and has ripple effects. So Hud, tell me how you got from Indiana to Yellowstone National Park, for starters, and how that all came about.

Hudson Freeze:

It was a blessing stroke of luck, that's for sure. So I was an undergraduate college student at Indiana University, and I was, you know, one of the students in microbiology, and it's called bacteriology at the time, and you know, I wanted to do some research.

And so my advisor said, "You need to go down and see Dr Brock." And I had heard Brock give a lecture before, and I talked to him, and he says, Well, we're not working on that stuff right now, but what we're doing is we're going to go to Yellowstone. Would you like to come? You know, it's sort of like we're taking the first trip to Mars. You want to be on the rocket ship?

Wendy Corr:

Absolutely.

Hudson Freeze:

And I thought, My gosh, I've never been out of Indiana except to go, you know, a few miles that way, that way, and I might actually get to see mountains and hot springs. Yeah, I thought, oh, you know what? What could be better? I've not been out of Indiana. Let's give it a whirl.

And the way this got connected, Tom was on a trip to the West Coast, and then he went through Yellowstone and saw all these beautiful colored hot springs. And you knew the temperature was really high boiling water in some cases, but there were all these colored things around there. Well, what? What was that?

He thought it was probably bacteria and algae that were growing in the hot springs. And what was amazing is nobody thought that you could live above 50 degrees centigrade, and that's, you know, about like 130 that's somewhere around there, you know, kind of dishw