Bruce Hammock

DAVIS — A federally funded grant that supports the Biomolecular Technology Training Program (BTTP) at the University of California, Davis, has been renewed for another five years.

The $2.4 million grant, funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, was awarded to principal investigator Bruce Hammock of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, who obtained the initial grant 10 years ago.

"At a time when training grants are being ended left and right, this is good news," said Hammock, a distinguished professor of entomology who also directs several other federally funded programs on campus and does research with the UC Davis Cancer Center. "This means that we can continue to nurture exceptional graduate students and provide them with a training experience that will prepare them to be world-class scientists and leaders, who will advance the foundation of U.S. health care research."

The formal training program for the biotechnology training grant is the Designated Emphasis in Biotechnology (DEB) graduate program. DEB is part of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program, a special research program of the Office of Research that's located in the dean's offices of the College of Biological Sciences, Life Sciences Building.

The BTTP provides graduate students with multidisciplinary training and research opportunities in disease modeling, diagnosis, prevention and health care.

Hammock credited the "heavy lifting" involved in the program operation and grant renewal to Judith Kjelstrom, director of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program and program coordinator of BTTP and DEB; BTTP associate directors Martina Newell-McGloughlin and Karen McDonald; and Marianne Hunter, BTTP grant administrator and program manager of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program.

Students supported by the NIH Biomolecular Technology Training Grant are also members of the UC Davis DEB program, which boasts more than 200 Ph.D students. The training grant includes 50 mentors drawn from 72 departments and 29 graduate groups and programs. Of the mentors, seven are distinguished or chaired professors, five are fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and one is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

In their summary statement, NIH officials said that UC Davis "has a long and distinguished history in interdisciplinary scientific research and biotechnology is a notable example of this."

"The training program has extensive interaction with industrial biotechnologists," they said, also praising "the leadership and executive management of the training program as both efficient and well-conceived." Hammock has "enjoyed a long and distinguished career in biotechnology research and education," the NIH report said. "His research group has made seminal contributions in enzymology, bioanalytical chemistry, toxicology, agricultural chemistry and pharmacology."

"Particularly noteworthy is his work on the structure, function and inhibition of epoxide hydrolases. He has been a leader on the UC Davis campus in promoting biotechnology, as evidenced by his leadership of this training program and the NIEHS-funded Superfund Basic Research and Training Program. His research efforts are well funded from external sources, and his work is highly regarded nationally and internationally, as reflected in election to the National Academy in 1999." (NIEHS is the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.)

The NIH training grant in biomolecular technology is one of only four biotechnology training grants in California; the others are at UCLA, Stanford, and The Scripps Institute.

Hammock, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty in 1980, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the Entomological Society of America. As the principal investigator of the grant that funds the UC Davis Superfund Research Program, he received a $13.2 million, five-year competitive renewal grant in 2010 from NIEHS. He also directs the NIEHS Combined Analytical Laboratory.