- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
No, they won't—at least not for Bruce Hammock, a distinguished professor at the University of California, Davis, and the hundreds of scientists he's trained over an academic career spanning more than four decades at UC Davis and UC Riverside.
Looking back over 2018, Hammock remembers fondly the weekend that 100 of his former laboratory alumni from 10 countries traveled to Davis to honor his work, reunite, collaborate, and reminiscence.
Billed as “Biochemistry and Society: Celebrating the Career of Professor Bruce Hammock,” the three-day event drew Hammock lab alumni from throughout the United States, as well as Egypt, Spain, China, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Sweden, Canada and the Czech Republic.
“It was really special and I will treasure that weekend always,” said Hammock, who trained scientists at UC Riverside for five years before joining the UC Davis faculty in 1980. He currently holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has directed the UC Davis Superfund Program, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Environmental Health (NIH/NIEHS), for 31 years.
The distinguished professor, known for his expertise in chemistry, toxicology, biochemistry and entomology, meshes all four sciences in his 50-year research on acute and neuropathic pain in humans and companion animals. It all began with his basic research on how caterpillars become butterflies, research that led to key discoveries about chronic pain.
Since then, his lab has generated more than 80 patents, 300 postdoctoral fellows, and more than 65 graduates, who now hold positions of distinction in academia, industry and government.
Hammock's colleagues, and former postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students and visiting scholars arrived at the lab reunion with their spouses--as well as their scientific posters for display and discussion. The posters covered everything from ground-breaking research in prestigious journals to a humorous look at his annual water balloon battles in front of Briggs Hall.
The scientists dined at the UC Davis Conference Center, the Buehler Alumni Center and the Stonegate Country Club; shared months, years and decades of memories; and toasted, roasted and gifted their mentor. Hammock, in turn, toasted, roasted and gifted them.
“We had a blast,” recalled organizer Shirley Gee, a former research toxicologist and manager of the Hammock lab for 31 years. She retired in June 2016 after 40 years of service with the university.
“I have had a vision of this event to honor Bruce for many years now, and it was such a thrill to see it come together,” she said. “Reconnecting in person with all the alumni and their families was more rewarding than I could have imagined, but even more importantly was the thrill of watching alumni reconnect with each other! There were a lot of tears in the house. Many people I think were surprised by how the years melted away when they began reacquainting. I think that speaks to the environment that Bruce created that led to many strong personal and professional bonds.”
Gee credited her seven-member committee—former Hammock students Keith Wing, Jim Ottea, Tom Sparks, Babak Borhan, Qing Li; postdoctoral fellow and “academic grandson” Kin Sing Stephen Lee, a former student of Babak Borhan; and colleague Sarjeet Gill, now a distinguished professor at UC Riverside, with greatly contributing to the success of the one-of-a-kind celebration.
As graduate students, and Hammock and Gill worked together in the John Casida lab at UC Berkeley and later in Larry Gilbert's lab where they co-discovered the enzyme, soluble epoxide hydrolase. Hammock remembers researching juvenile hormones and what's involved in "how caterpillars became butterflies."
Hammock has studied the enzyme system and its inhibitors ever since. He recently formed a Davis-based company, EicOsis, to develop an orally active non-addictive drug for inflammatory and neuropathic pain for human beings and companion animals. Human clinical trials are scheduled to begin in 2019. Several seed-fund grants and a NIH/NINDS (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke) Blueprint Development Grant support EicOsis.
Hammock, described at the lab reunion as a “genius,” collaborates with scientists worldwide in what's been described as “unprecedented research with a multidisciplinary, integrated approach to research focused on insect biology, mammalian enzymology, and analytical chemistry.” He has authored more than 1000 publications on a wide range of topics in entomology, biochemistry, analytical and environmental chemistry in high quality journals, and has been cited more than 54,000 times. In the epoxide hydrolase field, the Hammock laboratory has published almost 900 peer-reviewed papers.
Tom Sparks, who was Hammock's first graduate student at UC Riverside, chronicled Hammock's career and recalled humorous anecdotes from his early professorship at UC Riverside. A former professor at Louisiana State University, and now a research fellow in Discovery Research at Dow AgroSciences (now Corteva Agriscience, Indianapolis, Sparks praised Hammock's intellect and curiosity. “For Bruce, it was all about the journey, looking around and operative at the interface between entomology, biochemistry and chemistry.”
Gill, along with University of Utah emeritus professor Glenn Prestwich and UC Davis research scientist Karen Wagner also delivered presentations, fondly recalling their shared time and science with Hammock.
Keith Wing, who was Hammock's second graduate student at UC Riverside/Davis, served as emcee at the lab reunion. A former senior research associate at DuPont and Rohm and Haas and current consultant, Wing said “Bruce has inspired many hundreds of developing scientists. For myself and many others, he was able to see what we could become as scientists and social contributors before we could see it ourselves."
Qing Li, a professor in the University of Hawaii's Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources who received his doctorate from UC Davis, studying with major professors Bruce Hammock and James Seiber, said that "Bruce is an eminent scientist and a great mentor. Many of us have benefited from his effective mentorship. Back in 1990, after he signed my dissertation, he shook my hand, and then he asked me to tape-record it and give him the recordings -- a great 'homework' assignment and good practices for me."
Others commented that they learned this from Hammock: “We explore the unexpected and get to do things that don't work” and “Design things to fail; when they don't fail follow along.”
Hammock, the crowd agreed, seems to follow baseball legend Yogi Berra's sage advice: “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Gill praised Hammock's “impact on human health, environmental health” as well as his love of the outdoors—from kayaking to mountain climbing.
Numerous alumni lauded Hammock's sense of humor. One scientist quoted Albert Einstein as saying “Creativity is intelligence having fun” and added “Bruce is always having fun.”
Among the other comments:
- “I never heard him speak a cross word.”
- "He treats everyone with respect.”
- "Bruce loves science and he loves people.”
- "He never heard a crazy idea.”
- "What Bruce does—he delivers the future.”
- "Bruce has a lot of determination and can approach difficult problems from multiple angles.”
- "Bruce values strong relationships with friends he has made over the years”
A native of Little Rock, Ark., Hammock received his bachelor of science degree, magna cum laude, in 1969 from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, where he majored in entomology and minored in zoology and chemistry. Then it was off to UC Berkeley, for his doctorate in entomology/toxicology in 1973, and postdoctoral fellowship.
It was at UC Berkeley where he met and married his wife, Lassie, who had just entered the doctoral program in plant physiology. They married in 1972 and then “the Army called me up,” Hammock remembers.
Hammock served as a public health medical officer/first lieutenant with the U.S. Army Academy of Health Science in San Antonio, Texas; and then did more postdoctoral research at the Rockefeller Foundation, Department of Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston. Ill.
Hammock then joined the faculty of the Division of Toxicology and Physiology, UC Riverside Department of Entomology in 1975 before heading for UC Davis in 1980 to accept a joint-faculty appointment in toxicology and entomology.
Bruce and Lassie reared three children: Tom, Bruce and Frances. “Frances and her husband, Adrian, teach math at UC San Diego; Bruce is on the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine faculty; and Tom, a graduate of the American Film Institute Conservatory, makes movies,” Hammock said, adding that he and Lassie appeared in one of the movies that Tom directed: "The Last Survivors."
Highly honored by his peers, Hammock is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, which honors academic invention and encourages translations of inventions to benefit society. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, and the recipient of scores of awards, including the Bernard B. Brodie Award in Drug Metabolism, sponsored by the America Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics; and the first McGiff Memorial Awardee in Lipid Biochemistry.
Hammock told the crowd at the reunion that he began his career studying insect science but switched to human research after encountering “all the suffering involved in acute and neuropathic pain.”
His insect science research centered around how a key enzyme, epoxide hydrolase, degrades a caterpillar's juvenile hormone, leading to metamorphosis from the larval stage to the adult insect. He then wondered "Does the enzyme occur in plants? Does it occur in mammals?" It does, and particularly as a soluble epoxide hydrolase in mammals.
“It is always important to realize that the most significant translational science we do in the university is fundamental science,” said Hammock. “The extreme and poorly treated pain that I observed as a medical officer in a burn clinic in the Army, is a major driver for me to translate this knowledge to help patients with severe pain.”
And it all began with him asking how caterpillars turn into butterflies.
"Science is full of surprises," the distinguished UC Davis professor said. "We need to remember that the concept, the clinical target, and even the chemical structure came from asking how caterpillars turn into butterflies."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
They should limit their hobby to two colonies, says Gary, 85, whose expertise in beekeeping, including professor, scientist, author and professional bee wrangler, spans seven decades.
“Increasing populations of bees can easily ‘overgraze' the resources,” Gary explains. “Excessive competition for limited nectar and pollen sources also threatens hundreds of native bee species, such as bumble bees, that have similar dietary requirements.”
In his newly published second edition of his book, Honey Bee Hobbyist: The Care and Keeping of Bees (Fox Chapel Publishing, East Petersburg, Pa.), he includes a chapter on “Urban Entomology” that “treads on sacred beekeeping ground by proposing a radical change to beekeeping in urban environments.”
But it's time “to recognize the realities of the urban environment and make appropriate changes in beekeeping practices,” he declares.
“The yield of honey per colony is declining significantly in urban environments,” he says. “These declines leave no doubt that overpopulation of bees in urban settings is the primary cause. Few beekeepers are aware that each bee colony consumes at least 100 pounds of honey annually, made from approximately 200 pounds of nectar! When nectar is abundant and there is good weather for foraging, a typical honey colony has the potential to produce more than 100 pounds of harvestable honey per year.”
“This is far more than typical hobby beekeepers are harvesting these days,” Gary relates. “It should be obvious that hobby beekeepers are keeping too many colonies in the typical urban environment.”
“Hobby beekeepers typically start out with one or two hives, but that often leads to several more due to their enthusiasm for keeping bees and harvesting more honey and equating the number of hives with elevating their status as beekeepers.”
In his book, he shares his beekeeping knowledge, dispels many beekeeping myths and provides science-based information. He covers such subjects as “To Beekeep or Not to Beekeep,” “The Bees' Home,” “Reproduction,” “Colony Defense and Sting Prevention” and activities inside and outside the hive.
Gary, who holds a doctorate in entomology from Cornell University, joined the UC Davis entomology faculty in 1962, retiring in 1994 after a 32-year academic career. He has authored more than 100 publications, including scientific papers, book chapters and popular articles in beekeeping trade journals.
A 70-year beekeeper--one of the longest in the nation--Gary began keeping bees at age 15 in Florida. His career includes hobby beekeeper, commercial beekeeper, deputy apiary inspector in New York, honey bee research scientist, entomology professor, author, bee wrangler and Guinness World record holder.
During his professional bee wrangler career spanning four decades, “The Bee Man” served as a consultant and bee stunt coordinator for 17 movies, 70 TV shows and six TV commercials. Among his credits: “Fried Green Tomatoes” and appearances with Johnny Carson and Jay Leno on Tonight Shows.
He launched the Thriller Bee Shows, performing more than 100 times in three western states, with venues that included the California State Fair. He drew widespread acclaim for wearing a head-to-toe suit of clustered bees while "Buzzin' with His Bee-Flat Clarinet."
Gary once trained bees to fly into his mouth to collect food from a small sponge saturated with artificial nectar. His holds the Guinness World record (109 bees inside his closed mouth for 10 seconds) for the stunt. He's also the person behind the "bee suit" record in the Guinness World Records; Gary clustered more than 87 pounds of bees on a friend.
Today, as a musician, he plays the clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax, and flute with several groups, and is updating his website, http://www.normangary.com.
No more “Buzzin' with His Bee-Flat Clarinet,” though.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Beekeeping and Management" will be part of the two-day UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine's 2019 winter conference presented by its Center for Continuing Education in February 2019.
The conference, covering several vet med topics or tracks, is set for Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 9-10. The beekeeping portion is on Sunday morning, Feb. 10.
California Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño, based in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will present the three seminars dealing with "Beekeeping and Management" in the Gladys Valley Hall, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
The bee schedule:
- 8:10 to 9 a.m.: "Honey Bee Biology and Apiculture Overview"
- 9:10 to 10 a.m.: "Common Issues in American Apiaries"
- 10:30 to 11:20 a.m.: "Honey Bee Bacterial Diseases and Antiobiotic Use"
Special pricing for those interested in attending only the "beekeeping track" is available, announced Saundra Wais, program manager for the Center for Continuing Professional Education. The onsite fee for this section is $45. A live webinar option is available for $40 for those who cannot be on campus, she said.
Several other tracks are scheduled, including Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM), Veterinary Technician (Vet Tech), Feline Dentistry Lab, and Food Animal Reproduction and Medicine (FARM) Club. Some 20 speakers are planned.
Further information, including pricing and registration fees, is available on the Center for Continuing Education site or by contacting Wais at sjwais@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-3905.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's all in the interest of science.
Beginning Jan. 1, Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, is sponsoring his annual “Beer for a Butterfly Contest.” The first person in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano who collects the first live cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, of the new year--outdoors--wins a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.
Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, launched the contest in 1972 as part of his scientific research to record the first flight of the butterfly in the three-county area. It's a contest he usually wins. He has been defeated only four times, and all by UC Davis graduate students.
Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.
In 2018, he collected the winner at 11:23 a.m. Friday, Jan. 19 in one of his frequented sites—a mustard patch by railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County.
“I spotted the male butterfly dorsal basking (sunbathing) on low vegetation shortly after the first cumulous formed at 11 a.m.,” the professor remembers. “As I approached to collect it, a small cumulus occluded the sun and it closed its wings over its back--allowing me to just pick it up without using my net at all, and drop it into a glassine envelope. It turned out that that was the ONLY cloud that crossed the sun in the next two and a half hours! It got up to about 60 degrees and was a gorgeous day with a trace of a west wind.”
He described the butterfly as quite yellow instead of white. “Cold weather promotes sepiapterin formation, so early ones are often quite yellow.”
This is the eighth year since 2010 that the winning butterfly has been collected in Yolo County. In 2017, Shapiro found the winner on the UC Davis campus; in 2016, graduate student Jacob Montgomery netted the winner outside his home in west Davis, and Shapiro collected all five winners from 2012 to 2015 in West Sacramento. He found the 2011 winner in Suisun, Solano County.
Shapiro's graduate student, Adam Porter, defeated him in 1983. Two other graduate students, Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk, each won in the late 1990s.
The butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. The male is white. The female is often slightly buffy; the "underside of the hindwing and apex of the forewing may be distinctly yellow and normally have a gray cast,” Shapiro said. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”
The contest rules include:
- It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
- It must be delivered alive to the department office, 2320 Storer Hall, UC Davis, during work hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with the full data (exact time, date and location of the capture) and your name, address, phone number and/or e-mail. The receptionist will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it. (If you collect it on a weekend or holiday, keep it in a refrigerator; do not freeze. A few days in the fridge will not harm it, Shapiro says.)
- Shapiro is the sole judge.
The list of winners, dates and locations since 2010:
- 2018: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento, Yolo County
- 2017: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
- 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery, UC Davis graduate student, collected the winner in west Davis
- 2015: Jan. 26: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2014: Jan. 14: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2013: Jan. 21: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2012: Jan. 8: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2011: Jan. 31: Shapiro collected the winner in Suisun, Solano County
- 2010: Jan. 27: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
Shapiro has monitored butterfly population trends on a transect across central California for 46 years and records the information on his research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/. His 10 sites stretch from the Sacramento River Delta through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains to the high desert of the Western Great Basin. Shapiro visits his sites every two weeks "to record what's out" from spring to fall. The largest and oldest database in North America, it was recently cited by British conservation biologist Chris Thomas in a worldwide study of insect biomass.
Shapiro, a member of the UC Davis faculty since 1971 and author of the book, Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento Valley Regions, has studied a total of 163 species of butterflies in his transect.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“All my life I've known my feet didn't have the strength and capability of most of the people I knew,” she recalled.
In high school, she began experiencing severe pain. Her family physician diagnosed her as having “growing pains.”
They weren't.
It wasn't until after she'd retired from her 34-year career as an elementary school teacher in Concord that a neurologist correctly diagnosed her—and her brother--as having peripheral neuropathy, a disease that afflicts more than 30 million people in the United States alone. Specifically, she and her brother inherited Hereditary Sensory Autonomic Neuropathy or HSAN.
Anderson's journey to learn more about peripheral neuropathy and to help others led her to co-found the Western Neuropathy Association (WNA) in Auburn in 1998, and serve as its president for the last two decades.
Her 20-year journey of hope recently led to the University of California, Davis, where distinguished professor Bruce Hammock is researching an enzyme aimed at controlling acute and neuropathic pain.
Anderson and WNA treasurer Darrell O'Sullivan, a former lab manager at the UC Davis Medical Center, recently visited the Hammock lab to present a $5000 check from the association to EicOsis, the Davis company that Hammock founded to move inhibitors of the soluble epoxide hydrolase into human clinical trials.
“We raised the money through $2,500 from our budget, and from voluntary donations from members and friends,” she said. “One member donated $1000 and asked it to be matched.”
“It was heartwarming to receive a $5000 check from this dedicated, grass-roots group,” said Hammock, whose research on the compounds spans nearly 50 years. “We are touched.”
Anderson and O'Sullivan toured Hammock's lab in Briggs Hall, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and discussed his research and the WNA mission and goals.
“There are medications that help the symptoms, but no cure yet,” Anderson said, adding that the Hammock discovery “may be close to a cure for some people who have pain and inflammation.”
"On behalf of EicOsis I want to thank the Western Neuropathy Association, and particularly Bev Anderson and Darryl O'Sullivan, for championing this effort," Hammock said. "Everyone at EicOsis is touched by the confidence they have put in us to develop a treatment for chronic pain. There are never guarantees in drug development, but certainly their support drives us to work hard to move this drug through FDA and on to clinical trials."
"We are, of course, working to raise support from federal agencies, venture funds and the pharmaceutical industry, but this support from Bev and her associates is heartfelt and inspiring. It illustrates what a great need there is to develop treatments for pain," Hammock said. "The fact that the support is coming from so many of the people who are suffering from pain is particularly inspiring."
"It is inspiring about how upbeat the individuals are in these organizations as they support each other and exchange approaches in dealing with pain," he pointed out. "But underlying these optimistic conversations is the reality that pain can be an overpowering factor compromising the leading a full and health life. We must find a solution to the problems of pain and neuropathy."
The clinical trials, expected to begin next year, will target chronic or neuropathic pain with a non-opiate analgesic. In parallel, Hammock and his UC Davis colleagues are developing a drug to treat a commonly fatal pain condition in horses called laminitis as well as arthritic pain in dogs and cats.
Hammock traces the history of his work to 1969 to his graduate student days in the laboratory of UC Berkeley Professor John Casida. Hammock was researching insect developmental biology and green insecticides when he and colleague Sarjeet Gill, now a distinguished professor at UC Riverside, discovered the target enzyme in mammals that regulates epoxy fatty acids.
“The work led to the discovery that many regulatory molecules are controlled as much by degradation and biosynthesis,” Hammock said. “The epoxy fatty acids control blood pressure, fibrosis, immunity, tissue growth, pain and inflammation to name a few processes.”
Peripheral neuropathy is a complex disease. It refers to “the many conditions that involve damage to the peripheral nervous system, the vast communication network that sends signals between the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) and all other parts of the body,” according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. “Best known are the signals to the muscles that tell them to contract, which is how we move, but there are different types of signals that help control everything from our heart and blood vessels, digestion, urination, sexual function, to our bones and immune system. The peripheral nerves are like the cables that connect the different parts of a computer or connect the Internet. When they malfunction, complex functions can grind to a halt.”
“There are over 150, some say over 200, known causes of neuropathy,” said Anderson, a resident of Colfax. “Diabetes is considered a chief cause. but chemotherapy and likely hereditary neuropathies are gaining on it.”
Although the peripheral neuropathy she has is HSAN, “there are10 or more hereditary types,” she said. “HSAN is unique in its early onset as I could have been diagnosed by kindergarten if medical science had been up to it then.” The neurologist who correctly diagnosed her told her she had “The neuropathy walk.”
“One aspect is that toes naturally go outward for better balance,” Anderson explained. “I call them my ‘outrigger toes.' With neuropathy, it usually starts with tingling like the foot is asleep and waking up and progresses into numbness. Pain of various types and intensities may follow. It boggles the mind to have feet so numb that surgery could be done on them without anesthesia but they still have pain. It depends on the amount of nerve damage.”
“There is a long list of other symptoms: sensory ones like feelings of hot or cold when the feet or hands are not hot or cold to the touch, deep itching, feeling like you are wearing a stocking or glove when you aren't, etc., motor ones like balance, and movement concerns, and autonomic ones that are internal as all internal organs are operated by peripheral nervous system. Blood pressure, kidney function, urinary tract, digestive system, sexual feelings, etc. are affected by the health of the nerves.”
Anderson noted that neuropathy “usually starts in the longest nerve which is the one that goes to the toes. When the progress gets up to the knees, it may start in the fingers and hands as that is now about the same length. However, it may also start in the hands if the injury that causes the neuropathy is in the cervical spine area initially. “
The mission of WNA, comprised of 500 members and many other attendees in California, Oregon and Nevada, is “to provide support, information and referral to people with neuropathy and to those who care about them, to inform and connect with the health care community and to support research,” Anderson said. The all-volunteer organization seeks to establish and develop support groups in as many cities as possible.
Highly honored for his work, Hammock is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors. He received an outstanding achievement award from the international Eicosanoid Research Foundation at its 2017 meeting in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he delivered a plenary lecture on “Control of Acute and Neuropathic Pain by Inhibiting the Hydrolysis of Epoxy Fatty Acid Chemical Mediators: Path to the Clinic.”
Hammock's career took him from UC Berkeley to the U.S. Army Academy of Health Science in San Antonio, Texas; to a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., and to UC Riverside, where he served as an assistant and associate professor before he joined the UC Davis faculty in 1980. He holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Center for Cancer Research.
Hammock collaborates with scientists worldwide in unprecedented research with a multidisciplinary, integrated approach to research focused on insect biology, mammalian enzymology, and analytical chemistry. He has authored more than 1000 publications on a wide range of topics in entomology, biochemistry, analytical and environmental chemistry in high quality journals. In the epoxide hydrolase field, the Hammock laboratory has published almost 900 peer-reviewed papers.
“For many years Sarjeet and I were alone in studying this enzyme and pathway but now its importance is well recognized in mammalian biology with over 17,000 peer reviewed papers in the area,” Hammock said. “The importance of this pathway is now clear.”
The Hammock laboratory is the home of the UC Davis/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Superfund Program. The laboratory has generated more than 80 patents, 300 postdoctoral fellows, and more than 65 graduates, who now hold positions of distinction in academia, industry and government.
“It is always important to realize that the most significant translational science we do in the university is fundamental science,” said Hammock. “The extreme and poorly treated pain that I observed as a medical officer in a burn clinic in the Army, is a major driver for me to translate this knowledge to help patients with severe pain. Hopefully, we can start human clinical trials next year.”
Bev Anderson and fellow members of WNA hope so, too. It's been a long journey, from misdiagnosis to rays of hope to bursts of optimism.