Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch M ax D elbrück L ecture

Date: July 11 th, 2008 Speaker:Helen H. Hobbs HHMI, UT Southwestern Medical Center Dallas, TX, USA Title:Rerouting Receptors to Reduce Heart Disease Host: Thomas Willnow Supported by Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), Berlin-Buch Circle of Friends and Alumni of the MDC

Rerouting Receptors to Reduce Heart Disease Helen Hobbs uses human genetics to elucidate key pathways in cholesterol and lipoprotein metabolism. Her major contributions include the discovery of the molecular basis of sitosterolemia (ABCG5 or ABCG8), of autosomal recessive hypercholesterolemia (ARH), and of dominant hypocholesterolemia (PCSK9). She has documented that sequence variations that are individually rare and of major effect collectively contribute significantly to variability in a variety of metabolic traits in humans. Most recently, she has provided genetic data that confirms the primacy of LDL levels in coronary atherosclerotic risk in humans and suggests new approaches to the prevention of heart disease. Speaker’s background Helen Hobbs started out as a physician but turned to scientific research as the major focus of her career. She went to medical schoold at Case Western Reserve University and began her medical career with a internship at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital and residency in Internal Medicine AT Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular genetics and endocrinology. Hobbs is currently a professor of internal medicine and molecular genetics and Director of the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She has been an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2002 and is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences since 2007.