- 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.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The award consists of a $2,000 honorarium and a commemorative medal. His work will be published in the journal Drug Metabolism and Disposition.
A member of the UC Davis faculty since 1980, Hammock will receive the award April 28 during the joint annual meeting of the ASPET and the Chinese Pharmacological Society, set for April 26-30 in San Diego. He will present a keynote speech about his research.
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.
Hammock, who directs a laboratory of more than 40 scientists and students in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, explores the biochemical basis of human and environment interactions and their implications for improving both human and environmental health.
For more than 35 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.
In selecting Hammock, ASPET acknowledged Hammock’s collaborative studies in drug metabolism and metabolomics. The society also noted his tradition of sharing reagents for research to enable investigators in both the private and public sectors to make substantial advances for the development of potentially useful therapeutic compounds to treat stroke, atherosclerosis, heart failure, renal failure, inflammation and neuropathic pain.
Hammock is best known for his work on epoxide hydrolases and in particular, the soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), but also has made major contributions to the esterase field and other enzymes involved in drug metabolism. He has received many awards for his work in agriculture, toxicology and chemistry.
Hammock 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 received his bachelor of science degree magna cum laude from Louisiana State University in entomology and chemistry and his doctorate from UC Berkeley in entomology and toxicology, working in xenobiotic metabolism.
KEY DISCOVERIES ON sEH FROM HAMMOCK LABORATORY
- Discovery of sEH (1972)
- First rapid radiochemical assay methods (1979, 1980)
- First spectral and fluorescent assays for the enzyme (1982, 1988, 1994)
- Fluorescent high throughput assay for screening (2005, 2006)
- First high throughput screen (90,000 compound National Institutes of Health library) (2007, PubChem)
- Initial determination of substrate selectivity (1979, 1980)
- Discovery that fatty acid epoxides are good substrates for sEH (1979)
- Discovery that PPAR alpha agonists induce the sEH (1983)
- Development of first antibodies to sEH (1981)
- Development of 1 step affinity purification procedure for sEH (1985, 1988)
- Cloning and expression of rodent and human sEH cDNA (1993)
- First cloning, expression and characterization of a plant sEH (1994)
- Cloning of first sEH gene (1994)
- First irreversible inhibitors (1982)
- Discovery that arachidonate epoxides are substrates of sEH (1983)
- First study of regio and stereospecificity of enzyme (1980, 1993)
- Regio and enantiospecificity of sEH with epoxyeicosanoids (1993)
- First isolation of substrate-enzyme complex (1994)
- Elucidation of the catalytic mechanism of epoxide hydrolases (1995)
- Discovery that linoleate diols are chemical mediators (1997)
- Blocking linoleate epoxide toxicity with EH inhibitors (1998)
- X-ray structure of the sEH (1999)
- Discovery of first transition state mimics of EH (1999)
- Reduction of blood pressure in vivo with sEH inhibitors (sEHI) (2000)
- Development of the first potent mEH inhibitors (2001)
- Characterization of eicosanoid profiles by LC-MS including EETs (2002)
- Demonstration that sEH is a divalent enzyme with lipid phosphatase activity (2003)
- Demonstration that sEHI can treat rodent models of chronic pulmonary obstructive disease (copd) and lipopolysaccharide induced sepsis (2005)
- Demonstration that sEHI shift the entire arachidonate cascade from a pattern of initiation of inflammation to a pattern of resolution of inflammation (2005)
- Founded a company and acquired funding to develop sEHI clinically (2005)
- Demonstrated sEHI synergize COX inhibitors and reduce thromboxanes (2006)
- Optimized picomolar sEHI with good ADME in rodent, canine and primates (2007)
- Demonstration sEHI synergize LOX and FLAP inhibitors (2007)
- Demonstration sEHI are strongly analgesic (2007)
- Demonstration that sEHI are strongly analgesic with neuropathic pain (2008)
- Successful treatment of diabetic neuropathic pain with sEH inhibitor in double blind cross over trial (2012)
- Demonstration that the ω-3 epoxide, DHA, is more potent at reducing blood pressure, pain, and inflammation than ω-6 ARA (2011-13)
- Demonstration that DHA epoxide reduces angiogenesis, tumor growth and metastasis (2013)
- The sEHI and other compounds from the Hammock laboratory have been used to dissect the basic biology of the P450 branch of the arachidonate cascade and to identify numerous clinical targets ranging from cardiovascular disease to diabetes.
ASPET is a 4800-member scientific society whose members conduct basic and clinical pharmacological research in academia, industry and the government. Their efforts help develop new medicines and therapeutic agents to fight existing and emerging diseases.
Last year’s Brodie Award recipient was Yuichi Sugiyama of the University of Tokyo, a world leader in the pharmacological and pharmaceutical sciences via integrative studies on the pharmacokinetics and membrane transport of drugs.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
His interest in “all things bugs” stemmed from his entomologist father, Bruce Hammock, now a distinguished professor at the University of California, Davis.
It was not just entomology and art, though, that interested Tom. He listened attentively to the southern folklore and childhood memories that his father, reared in the Deep South, shared:
Black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck; a mischievous pet raccoon named Willy; the comings and goings of a scientist operating a biological supply company in a swamp; and
the ever-present will-o’-the-wisp lighting up Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Swamp.
Tom Hammock not only drew it all in; he made it his own and then some.
Entomology and art, pyramided with writing, landscape architecture, film production and storytelling, evolved into an original graphic novel, “An Aurora Grimeon Story—Will O’ the Wisp,” authored by Tom Hammock, illustrated by his friend Megan Hutchison and edited by
“It’s about wicked delights and dark things,” said Tom, “and it has a girl-science component.” In fact, it is billed as the first graphic novel with a strong girl scientist as the main character. The publisher, Archaia, will release the book Jan. 28. It is already drawing rave reviews, including “This book shows the beginning of fine careers as creators of stories.”
It has already been nominated for "best young adult graphic novel" award from the American Library Association.
“Almost no one writes for girls and almost no one writes for girls dealing with girls and science,” Tom said. “Graphic novels for girls are rare and have a tough road in the publishing world.”
Assorted bugs, including butterflies, scorpions, fireflies, mosquitoes, beetles and spiders, find their way into the book. So does a pet raccoon named Missy, patterned after Bruce’s childhood pet, Willy.
“As a parent, it is always interesting to see what your kids pick up in their childhood,” said Bruce Hammock, a Little Rock, Ark. native who graduated in 1969 from Louisiana State University (LSU) and then obtained his doctorate in entomology/toxicology from UC Berkeley. “I think my Willy stories were recreated in the tale about Aurora.”
Aurora’s last name is Grimeon, named for one of Bruce’s LSU roommates, Jim Grimeon. “I am so thrilled that so much of this history,” Bruce said, “has resurfaced in Tom’s book.”
Aurora, accompanied by Missy the raccoon, explores the fog-shrouded island as “ghostly things happen and residents disappear,” Tom said. Aurora follows a will ‘o’ the wisp, an eerie blue light floating several feet off the ground. “The will-o’-wisp is a natural phenomenon,” Tom said. “It’s actually a natural swamp gas.”
Quipped Bruce: “I never knew that my family in Arkansas practiced hoodoo—I thought everyone ate black-eyed peas, hog jowl and burned a bayberry candle on New Year’s Day. We still do.”
Bruce and his wife, Lassie, reared their three offspring to love nature. “The Atchafalaya certainly is as much a wilderness as the Sierra Nevada with islands that move with the tides, different cultures, and a rich biological diversity—much of which bites,” said Bruce, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“Tom has always had a love of biology and landscape,” Bruce said. “He was always sketching nature in his childhood. He could not stand to kill insects for his high school insect collection so instead, he made exquisite drawings of insects that he captured.”
Tom, a 1994 graduate of Davis High School, initially studied biology at UC Berkeley and then switched to landscape architecture. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture, he left Berkeley to study film design at the American Film Institute. He then went on to work in such film productions as “Breaking Bad,” “Dexter,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” He is now involved in the hugely popular young adult and horror film genre.
“At first I wanted to be a scientific illustrator,” Tom said. He took private art lessons from Mary Foley Benson of Davis, former chief USDA scientific illustrator at the Smithsonian Natural History. Her work graces Bruce Hammock's office in Briggs Hall and in a conference room.
The Hammock family is a three-doctorate family. In addition to Bruce the entomologist, son Bruce (UC Davis doctorate), is an aquatic entomologist in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and daughter Frances (UCLA doctorate), is a mathematician in San Diego.
Tom, known for his sense of humor, wrote in his biography published on Oscillary Isle website: “My father studies venoms, insects and other odd creatures. As such, most family vacations were spent in the wilderness, often hunting for previously said creatures and their venoms. I've lived a number of places around the world including, but not limited to Australia (home of many venomous creatures) and England (home of not so many venomous creatures.)"
"Presently I live in Hollywood where I drink tea and design films when I'm not writing graphic novels." Some of the films he’s designed include “You're Next,” “All The Boys Love Mandy Lane,” and “V/H/S 2.”
Tom’s parents, Bruce and Lassie, appeared in a 2013 movie that Tom directed and produced. The film, as yet untitled, is expected to be released sometime this year.
“I watched a lot of movies in my childhood,” said Tom, who remembers growing up without a TV or with a black and white TV in high school. One of his favorite films? “Blade Runner.”
Tom recalls working on the film, Dexter, and blowing up a boat. “Then when we arrived at the airport they wouldn’t let us on the plane because of the residue on our hands.”
Meanwhile, Tom Hammock and Megan Hutchison are excited about the graphic novel and pleased with the design. It resembles a diary, complete with lock, and is printed with a gold foil-embossed hard cover. “It looks as if it belongs in Silver’s old library of curiosities,” Tom said.
They are also growing increasingly fond of their adventuresome, strong and science-loving character, Aurora. They are eagerly looking forward to Part 2 of the trilogy.
So are the fans. One online comment: “"OMG!! This was so good. I hope and hope and hope there will be more!!!!"
Another commented: "I love Aurora and everything about this story. The art is fantastic. 10 out of 10.”
Others described it as “deliciously moody,” “impressively creepy” and “a blend of macabre and whimsy (which) makes for some fun and unexpected reading.”
Looking back, entomologist Bruck Hammock said: "Tom was always interested in landscape, art, and biology. However, film and graphic novels are so far from my background I never saw this as a career path. In retrospect it is obvious."
For more information:
Website: http://www.ossuaryisle.com
Book Trailer: http://www.ossuaryisle.com/trailer.html
Preview, PDF: http://ossuaryisle.com/preview.pdf
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ossuaryisle
Preview by Comic Book Resources: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=18246
Goodreads.com: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18125353-will-o-the-wisp
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Will-Wisp-Aurora-Grimeon-Hammock/dp/1936393786
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZf1wJDMSG0
Trending tweets: #WILLOtheWisp
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Hammock was named the recipient of the 2013 William E. M. Lands Lectureship Award in Nutritional Biochemistry at the Department of Biological Chemistry, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor. He lectured Oct. 8 on “Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Inhibitors of the Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase Block Angiogenesis, Tumor Metastasis and Tumor Growth.”
Hammock and postdoctoral researcher Guodong Zhang and their team made national news when they discovered a key mechanism by which dietary omega-3 fatty acids (fish oils) could reduce the tumor growth and spread of cancer, a disease that kills some 580,000 Americans a year.
“Bill Lands has long been one of my heroes in science,” Hammock said, “because he carried out excellent fundamental biochemistry and then applied this work to having a dramatic effect on diet and health worldwide.
Lands, a world-renowned nutritional biochemist, discovered the beneficial effects of balancing the effects of excess omega-6 fatty acids with dietary omega-3 fatty acids. One of the world's foremost authorities on fish oils and the author of the book, "Fish, Omega-3 and Human Health,” Lands is best known for his seminal studies demonstrating the benefit of reducing omega-6 and increasing dietary omega-3 lipids. He is a 1951 graduate of the University of Michigan and served on the faculty from 1955-1980.
Some of the top nutritionists in the country have lectured on the biochemical of essential nutrients at the Lands Lectureship, but this year was particularly relevant. Hammock was selected because his laboratory has shown one of the biochemical mechanisms by which omega–3 lipids reduce blood pressure, inflammation and pain.
The work was also timely in that Hammock’s laboratory, in collaboration with Kathy Ferrara at UC Davis and Dipak Panigrahy at Harvard recently demonstrated a biochemical pathway by which omega-3 fatty acids can reduce the growth and metastasis of breast and lung cancers. The work was recently published (April 3) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Hammock lab researcher Guodong Zhang, now an assistant professor in the Department of Food Science, University of Massachusetts.
The UC Davis researchers demonstrated that the omega-3 fatty acid is converted into bioactive metabolites that reduce hypertension, inflammation and pain.
While at the University of Michigan, Hammock also delivered a keynote address at the Fall Symposium on Lipid Mediators, a one-day scientific conference highlighting biomedical research involving lipid mediators. Hammock described how an omega-3 rich diet coupled with a drug candidate developed at UC Davis with researchers Bora Inceoglu and Karen Wagner can control chronic neuropathic pain such as that associated with diabetes.
“Now that the fundamental work can be translated, Alonso Guedes of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine is well underway in trials of a drug to relieve pain and inflammation in horses, cats and now dogs,” Hammock said.
The omega-3 lipid project is part of the effort carried out by the UC Davis Foods For Health Institute, directed by Bruce German. The work has been in progress for a number of years in the Hammock laboratory. John Newman, former postdoctoral researcher in the Hammock lab and now an adjunct professor in nutrition, received the John Kinsella award for his Ph.D. work developing a mass spectrometry method for regulatory lipids. More recently Angela Zivokvic, former postdoctoral researcher in the Hammock lab and now associate director of scientific development and translation, has led a team using a later version of this mass spectrometry method to predict patients most likely to benefit from an increase in omega-3 dietary lipids.
“As Professor Bill Lands often says, ‘Nix the 6 (Omega-6) and eat the 3 (Omega-3,’ Hammock quipped.
Hammock 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.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bonning is one of only 10 Fellows elected this year in the 6500-member ESA “for outstanding contributions to entomology in one or more of the following: research, teaching, extension, or administration.”
The 10 will be honored at ESA’s annual meeting set Nov. 10-13 in Austin, Texas. Other 2013 Fellows with UC connections are Jocelyn Millar, entomology professor at UC Riverside, and Jeffery G. Scott of Cornell University, who received his doctorate in entomology and toxicology from UC Riverside.
“Bryony is a star in our department,” said distinguished professor Bruce Hammock of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Hammock was elected an ESA Fellow in 2010.
“Bryony and I worked together at the NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology at Oxford and she came back to UC Davis with me as a postdoc,” Hammock said.
“Bryony did amazing work on recombinant baculovirus insecticides working with Susumu Maeda, Sean Duffy and myself,” Hammock said. “She and Kelli Hoover, now a professor at Pennsylvania State University, were partners in my lab.”
Another UC Davis connection: Bonning married Jeff Beetham, a Ph.D. student in the Hammock lab and now a professor at Iowa State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine.
Bonning joined the faculty of ISU in 1994. She oversees fundamental and applied research on insect physiology and insect pathology with the goal of developing novel, environmentally benign alternatives to chemical insecticides for insect pest management. Her research has included the study of insect hormones and enzymes and insecticidal toxins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, insect small RNA, the genetic optimization of insect viruses for pest management, insect virus discovery, and the use of viral proteins for development of insect resistant transgenic plants. Recent research has included modification of Bt toxins to target hemipteran pests which typically have low susceptibility to native Bt toxins, and the use of the coat protein of an aphid-vectored plant virus for delivery of insect specific neurotoxins to their target site within the aphid hemocoel.
Bonning is the founding director of the Center for Arthropod Management Technologies (CAMTech), a research center supported by the National Science Foundation, industry, and universities. CAMTech engages scientists at ISU and its sister institution, the University of Kentucky, in collaborative efforts with the world’s largest agricultural and insect pest control companies to better align research conducted within academe with the need of industry for practical pest management solutions. Bonning met the co-director at the University of Kentucky site, Dr. S. Reddy Palli, through a collaborative project while at Davis.
Bonning has mentored more than 30 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and teaches insect pathology and molecular entomology at the graduate level. Over the course of her career, she has authored or co-authored more than 110 scientific papers, reviews, and book chapters, and holds five patents. Her work has been funded by diverse research agencies, including the National Science Foundation and USDA. She has served as associate editor for the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, as council trustee and chair of the Virus Division and program chair for the Society for Invertebrate Pathology, and on the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, Baculovirus Study Group and Dicistrovirus and Iflavirus Study Group. Her accomplishments were recognized by the Iowa Technology Association through the Iowa Women of Innovation Award for Research Innovation and Leadership. She is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Bonning received her bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Durham, UK, in 1985, with specialization in entomology and neurobiology, and her doctorate in applied entomology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, UK in 1989.
While enrolled in college in the UK, she did field work on the detection and monitoring of insecticide resistance mechanisms in mosquitoes with the Anti-Malaria Campaign in Colombo, Sri Lanka; she was funded by the Overseas Development Administration. Bonning also did regional monitoring and field trials for biological or chemical control of arthropod and nematode pests in Derbyshire, UK, with the Department of Entomology, Ministry of Agriculture, Fishers and Food,Agricultural Development and Advisory Service.
After receiving her doctorate from the University of London, Bonning worked from 1989 to 1990 as a higher scientific officer with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology, Oxford, in Robert Possee’s lab, where she met Hammock during his sabbatical. She then moved to California to join the Hammock lab as a postdoctoral researcher.
On her last visit to UC Davis, on April 18, 2012, Bonning delivered an entomology seminar on "Novel Toxin Delivery Strategies for Management of Pestiferous Aphids.”
At the time Hammock said. "She is one of our most productive alumni in continuing her work on insect developmental biology and green pesticides based on insect viruses and expanded this dramatically into exciting new areas. She is advancing fundamental virology while applying this knowledge in production agriculture in both insect control and in blocking transmission of plant diseases by insects. She clearly is the leader in insect control with recombinant viruses.”