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"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. " - Lynn Hedrick, Ph.D.
Catherine C. "Lynn" Hedrick, PhD, is a Member in the Division of Inflammation Biology. Hedrick's lab is interested in lipid signaling in atherosclerosis and diabetes, with a primary focus on macrophage and lymphocyte activation.
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 the development of fatty cholesterol deposits in the artery wall that cause early atherosclerosis in type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients. 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 lipid and glucose levels in the artery wall change inflammatory and immune cell function in diabetes to cause atherosclerosis development.
ATP-binding cassette transporter G1 (ABCG1) negatively regulates thymocyte and peripheral lymphocyte proliferation. J Immunol. 2009, in press