Specto Design is a high-end 
"My interest in diabetes began when I was a child, as my mother suffered from complications of type 1 diabetes, and so when I was little I always wanted to study it. Later, I became interested in type 2 diabetes as a global health concern. I hope my work at the La Jolla Institute will bring new opportunities to find therapies to reduce or prevent atherosclerosis development in patients with diabetes." - Catherine C. "Lynn" Hedrick, Ph.D.
Catherine C. "Lynn" Hedrick, PhD, is a Member in the Division of Inflammation Biology. Hedrick's lab is interested in sterol regulation immune function in atherosclerosis & diabetes.
Hedrick received her B.S. in Biology from Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1984. She received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in 1992, where she performed her graduate research on LDL cholesterol metabolism in the laboratory of Dr Lawrence Rudel. From 1992 to 1995, she performed her postdoctoral research on HDL metabolism in the laboratory of Dr Aldons ‘Jake' Lusis at UCLA. From 1995 to 1999, she worked as a junior faculty member in the Division of Cardiology at UCLA, where her research focused on inflammation and endothelial function. From 2000 to 2009, Dr. Hedrick worked as a professor in the Departments of Pharmacology, Medicine, and Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In 2009, Dr. Hedrick was awarded the Harrison Chair of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics at the University of Virginia.
Dr. Hedrick currently serves on the NHLBI Program Project Grant Review Parent Committee, the NHLBI/NIDDK Animal Models of Diabetic Complications Committee, and the American Heart Association ATVB Council Leadership Committee. She is also a Fellow of the American Heart Association. Past honors received by Dr. Hedrick include the Atorvastatin National Award for Cardiovascular Research in 2000 and American Heart Association Young Investigator Awards in 1993 and 1995.
Lynn Hedrick, Ph.D. and her team study mechanisms in the artery wall that cause early atherosclerosis in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Type 1 and type 2 diabetes sufferers are four times more likely to die of a heart attack than the general population, leading Hedrick to believe that the diabetic environment in the body accelerates the likelihood that these disease patients will suffer heart attacks. In particular, Hedrick studies how elevated lipids, such as cholesterol, change immune cell function in diabetes to accelerate atherosclerosis development.
An intracellular role for ABCG1-mediated cholesterol transport in the regulated secretory pathway of pancreatic beta cells. 
