Removing the GPCR-mediated brake on exocytosis enhances insulin action, promotes adipocyte browning, and protects against diet-induced obesity

About Heidi Hamm

"Heidi E. Hamm, Ph.D. is the Aileen M. Lange and Annie Mary Lyle Chair in Cardiovascular Research, and Professor of Pharmacology, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, and Orthopedics at Vanderbilt University. This is one of the top Pharmacology departments in the country, judged by reputation, citation analysis, and NIH funding. She oversaw an increase of the size of the Department, as well as a quintupling of its NIH funding, in her 14 years as Chair. The Department’s strengths lie in GPCR signal transduction and neuroscience, and she has expanded it in the areas of drug discovery and structural biology of membrane proteins.

Her research focuses on the structure and function of GTP binding proteins and the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction. Her laboratory has been involved in studying G protein coupled signal transduction for many years and has made key discoveries in G protein structure and mechanisms of activation by GPCRs and activation of effectors. Current areas of interest include Protease Activated Receptor signaling in the cardiovascular system and regulation of vesicular exocytosis mediated by Gi/o-coupled receptors by G subunit binding to SNAREs.

Dr. Hamm obtained her Ph.D. in 1980 from the Department of Zoology at the University of Texas-Austin and did postdoctoral training in the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1980-1983. Her initial research centered around circadian clocks and melatonin synthesis in the avian retina; her postdoctoral work investigated the role of the G protein transducin in visual transduction using blocking monoclonal antibodies. She held faculty appointments at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Medicine and Northwestern University before moving to Vanderbilt in 2000.

She has received numerous awards, including the Glaxo Cardiovascular Discovery Award, the Distinguished Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression, the Faculty of the Year award from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and the Stanley Cohen Award “For Research Bringing Diverse Disciplines, such as Chemistry or Physics, to Solving Biology’s Most Important Fundamental Problems” from Vanderbilt University in 2003. She gave the Fritz Lipmann Lecture at ASBMB in 2001. "

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