- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
DAVIS--Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, has just received notice that the National Institutes of Health has renewed his Research Project Grant (R01) on “Hydrolytic Enzymes in the Metabolism of Toxins” for a five year-period, totaling $2 million.
This amounts to 37 years of continued grant support on inhibitors of the enzyme, soluble epoxide hydrolase, which Hammock discovered can block hypertension and neuropathic pain.
“Our investigation of the soluble epoxide hydrolase enzyme and its fatty acid epoxide substrates led to the discovery that environmental chemicals, personal care products, and pharmaceuticals can alter the enzyme's activity and expression, which in turn affects hypertension, inflammation, pain and other biologies,” Hammock said.
“We are now evaluating inhibitors of the enzyme as powerful probes to understand the mechanism by which this unique class of natural regulatory oxidized-lipids works, and we are finding that these inhibitors show promise in reducing pain, the growth of solid tumors and fibrosis. We found that omega 3 fatty acid epoxides interact positively with these enzyme inhibitors, illustrating that man's total environment, including exposure to chemicals as well as dietary nutrients and life-style, has a major role and should be considered in determining effects on human health.”
Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, directs the campuswide Superfund Research Program, National Institutes of Health Biotechnology Training Program, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Combined Analytical Laboratory. He is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and the recipient of the 2001 UC Davis Faculty Research Lecture Award and the 2008 Distinguished Teaching Award for Graduate and Professional Teaching.
Hammock is the newly announced recipient of the biennial Bernard B. Brodie Award in Drug Metabolism, sponsored by American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) and will receive the award when he keynotes the joint annual meeting of ASPET and the Chinese Pharmacological Society, April 26-20, in San Diego. The award recognizes Hammock's outstanding original research contributions to the understanding of human drug metabolism and transport and the continued impact of his research in the area of drug discovery and development.
For some 40 years, Hammock has worked on the mechanism of certain hydrolytic enzymes and their effect on human health. His work has helped identify new targets for the action of drugs and other compounds to improve health and predict risk from various environmental chemicals
Hammock directs a laboratory of more than 40 scientists and students at UC Davis, where they explore the biochemical basis of human and environment interactions and their implications for improving both human and environmental health.
![Professor Bruce Hammock in his Briggs Hall office. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey Professor Bruce Hammock in his Briggs Hall office. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/entomology/blogfiles/20614.jpg)