UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, will be the keynote speaker at the 13th Biennial Congress of the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids (ISSFAL), being held May 27 through May 31 at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas.

Hammock will present a plenary lecture on Thursday, May 31, offering an overview of the current state of the science in the area of oxidized lipids.

ISSFAL is “the leading showcase of what is new, exciting, and interesting in science and research in this field,” said executive committee member and organizing committee chair Hee Yong Kim, who serves as chief of the laboratory of Molecular Signalling for the National Institute of Health's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIH/NIAAA).

Hammock is known for his work on using natural chemical mediators to control inflammation and intractable pain.  He continues as the founding director of the campuswide Superfund Research Program--this is the 31st year--and the NIH's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Combined Analytical Laboratory. He has directed the NIH/ NIEHS Combined Analytical Laboratory for 25 years.

Hammock co-discovered the soluble epoxide hydrolase, and many of his more than 1100 publications and patents are on the P450 branch of the arachidonate cascade where the soluble epoxide hydrolase degrades natural analgesic and anti - inflammatory compounds. The founder of several companies, he has helped raise more than $50 million in private capital, and currently is chief executive officer of the Davis-based  EicOsis, where an orally active non- addictive drug for inflammatory and neuropathic pain is being developed for human beings companion animals.  EicOsis is supported by several seed-fund grants and a NIH/NINDS (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke) Blueprint Development Grant.

Highly honored by his peers, Hammock is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, which honors academic invention and encourages translations of inventions to benefit society. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, and the recipient of the Bernard B. Brodie Award in Drug Metabolism, sponsored by the America Society for Pharmacology and  Experimental Therapeutics. He is the first McGiff Memorial Awardee in Lipid Biochemistry. 

The Eicosanoid Research Foundation recently honored him for work on oxidized lipids. (See more on his website)