Maret G. Traber

Maret Gillett Traber (born 1950) is an American research biochemist. She is the Ava Helen Pauling Professor at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. Early life and education Traber was born in Stockton, California in 1950 to a milkman father and Estonian immigrant mother. She attended the University of California, Berkeley for her Bachelor of Science and PhD in nutrition during the 1970s. Upon graduating, she followed her husband Biff to New Jersey and accepted a part time position assisting graduate students at Rutgers University. Career Following her nine-month stint at Rutgers, Traber became a research scientist at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. While at NYU Grossman, she became interested in Vitamin E research as its deficiencies were attributed to neurological disorders. Traber worked with a research team to study low-density lipoprotein receptors in individuals suffering from inherited disorders of metabolic diseases. This led Traber and her colleagues to begin investigating the absorption and transport of Vitamin E. Traber remained in New York for 17 years before becoming an associate research biochemist at her alma mater. In this role, her research team found evidence that gamma-tocopherol played a crucial and complementary role in the body similar to those provided by vitamin E supplements with alpha-tocopherol. In 1998, Traber accepted a tenure-track position at Oregon State University to explore vitamin E metabolism and its role in degenerative diseases.