Advertisement

If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)

ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.

ENJOY UNLIMITED ACCES TO C&EN

Biological Chemistry

Seaborg Medal Goes to Ronald Evans

October 17, 2005 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 83, Issue 42

Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies will receive the 2005 Seaborg Medal of the University of California, Los Angeles, on Nov. 5. Award-related activities will include a symposium and award dinner. The symposium's title is Nuclear Receptors and the Complex Journey to Obesity.

Evans, who joined the Salk Institute in 1977, is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory. He holds the March of Dimes Chair in Molecular & Developmental Biology. Evans is known for his discovery of the superfamily of genes encoding nuclear hormone receptors and the elucidation of a unified signaling transduction pathway that governs how lipophilic hormones and drugs regulate virtually every developmental and metabolic pathway in animals and humans. This work has provided a direct blueprint for the discovery of new drugs for cancer, diabetes, and bone disease.

Evans studies the mechanisms through which steroids, vitamins A and D, and thyroid hormones regulate gene expression to control fundamental aspects of physiology, including sugar, salt, and fat metabolism; basal metabolic rate; and reproduction. In 1985, his group cloned and characterized the first nuclear hormone receptor, the human glucocorticoid receptor, and subsequently established the unexpected existence of a nuclear receptor superfamily. This work led to the principles of DNA recognition and receptor heterodimer formation and to the discovery of the DNA code for hormone response.

The unexpected discovery of the so-called orphan receptors opened up new areas of physiology, resulting in the identification of the first orphan ligands, many of which are simple metabolic products of common dietary lipids such as cholesterol and free fatty acids. These discoveries have led to a series of new drugs for diseases such as cancer, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and atherosclerosis.

The Seaborg Award events are sponsored by Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly & Co., Gilead Sciences, Neurocrine Biosciences, Merck Research Laboratories, and Sunesis Pharmaceuticals. For information, call (310) 267–5123 or visit www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/alumni/Seaborg/Seaborg05.html.

Advertisement

Article:

This article has been sent to the following recipient:

0 /1 FREE ARTICLES LEFT THIS MONTH Remaining
Chemistry matters. Join us to get the news you need.