Endocrine Abstracts

Dr. Ronald M Evans is known for his discoveries and characterization of nuclear hormone receptors, the establishment of the nuclear receptor super family and the elucidation of their universal mechanism of action, this revealed how receptor activation by lipophilic hormones and drugs are transformed into physiology and the treatment of disease.

Dr R M Evans obtained his BA and PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine in 1970 and 1974 respectively, was a postdoctoral fellow with James Darnell at the Rockefeller University in New York and in 1977 joined the faculty of The Salk Institute for Biological Studies where he is now an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory. He holds the March of Dimes Chair in Molecular and Developmental Biology and is Adjunct Professorships at the University of California, San Diego in the Departments of Biology, Biomedical Sciences, and Neuroscience.<

At Salk, Dr Evans isolated the GH gene to study its transcriptional regulation by steroid and thyroid hormones. In 1985 his group cloned and characterized the first nuclear hormone receptor, the human glucocorticoid receptor. His subsequent isolation of the thyroid, mineralocorticoid and retinoic acid (vitamin A) established the existence of the nuclear receptor superfamily. This work led to the principles of DNA recognition, receptor heterodimer formation, and the discovery of the DNA coding mechanism for hormone response elements. He isolated the first orphan receptors (ERR1and 2) as well as the unexpectedly important retinoid X receptor (RXR). He pioneered biochemical and molecular techniques (termed reverse endocrinology) that led to the identification of the RXR ligand 9-cis RA. RXR proved to be a Rosetta stone for puzzling out the identity of a series of unknown receptors, which have profound implications for normal physiology, disease pathogenesis and drug discovery. He also isolated and characterized the xenobiotic sensor SXR.

More recently, Dr Evans has focused on PPARg and d as major regulators of whole body lipid metabolism. As part of this work he created genetically thin mice and the first animal (termed the ‘Marathon Mouse’) genetically engineered for increased running endurance. This led to the recent discovery that transcription of a nuclear gene network by a PPARδ synthetic agonist and the AMP kinase (AMPK) activator ‘AICAR’ can enhance running endurance in absence of mechanical exercise. More recently, he has extended this concept by demonstrating that AICAR can act like ‘pharmacologic light’ to entrain the rhythm of the hepatic circadian clock.

Selected awards since 2000 include: 1st Bristol – Myers Squibb Award for Metabolic Research (2000), City of Medicine Award, Duke (2002), the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology (2003), General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Alfred P Sloan Medal (2003), Keio Medical Science Prize (2003), Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (2004), Glen T Seaborg Medal, UCLA (2005), ‘Grande Medaille d’Or’ of the French Academy of Sciences (2005), Gairdner Award, Canada (2006), Harvey Prize of the Technion Institute, Israel (2006), the Albany Prize in Medicine (2007) and the Endocrine Regulation Prize, IPSEN Foundation (2008), Ernst Knobil Award, U Texas Hlth Sci Cntr (2009), Wolf Prize, Wolf Foundation Israel (2012), Dale Medal, British Society for Endocrinology, UK (2013). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and was named the1994 California Scientist of the Year.