About the Author— Pat DeFlorin

I am currently (in 2012 when this website was published) a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse majoring in biology with a Biomedical Science concentration and a minor in chemistry. I am interested in many different subjects, particularly within the realm of science, and have not yet pinpointed a career path.

In my free time, a few things I like to do are: play leisure sports, spend time with friends, read, explore nature, and travel.

I decided to construct this webpage on Hydnellum peckii for several reasons.  First, I was interested in fungi and knew very little about them relative to plants and animals.  Furthermore, I was intrigued by the potential for H. peckii to be exploited for medicinal uses. In the past I had learned about various other organisms that had been used to make medicines. For instance, aspirin comes from willow trees, quinine (an anti-malarial drug) comes from cinchona trees, and Prialt (a chronic pain drug) comes from cone snails. Learning about such natural drug sources always piqued my interests about their underlying biochemical mechanisms. Consequently, I had a hankering to learn more bout the medical applications of H. peckii. A final factor in my selection of H. peckii was strictly aesthetic— it looks wicked.

This webpage is one of over six-hundred webpages created by UW-La Crosse undergraduate students!  You can view the entire collection of websites made by my peers and me at multipleorganisms.net.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments about this site by         e-mailing: deflorin.patr@uwlax.edu.