“Adventures with Steroids: Tracking where they need to go.”

Objectives:

1. Describe how hormones access their target cells in different organs and tissues and how this varies in different physiological states.
2. Identify how protein structures provide insight into their function.
3. Realize how genetic abnormalities reveal how proteins act in health and disease.

Geoffrey Hammond obtained his BSc from the University College of North Wales. He obtained his MSc in Steroid Endocrinology from the University of Leeds, and continued his graduate work at the University of Oulu, Finland, where receiving his PhD in Biochemistry. After postdoctoral training at the University of California San Francisco, he received an MRC (UK) Research Fellow transition award to start his own laboratory at the University of Manchester in 1981.

         Dr. Hammond relocated to Canada in 1984, where he received an Ontario Cancer Research and Treatment Foundation Research Career award and held appointments in the Departments of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pharmacology & Toxicology, and Oncology at the University of Western Ontario (UWO). He served as Director of the Cancer Research Laboratories at the London Regional Cancer Centre (1990-1998) and held an endowed chair in Molecular Toxicology. In 2002, he was recruited by The University of British Columbia (UBC) as a Professor in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, and served as the Scientific Director of the Child & Family Research Institute until 2012, when he was appointed as Professor and Head of the Department of Cellular & Physiological Sciences at UBC. Throughout his career he has held numerous salary awards including the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Reproductive Health.

         Professor Hammond has had a longstanding interest in endocrinology in general and the ways that steroid hormones function in particular. Steroid hormones control normal biological processes, but are implicated in many diseases, including reproductive disorders, inflammation, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hormone-dependent cancers of male and female reproductive tissues. The way steroids gain access to their target tissues is poorly understood, but this process is influenced primarily by two high affinity steroid-binding proteins in the blood: corticosteroid binding globulin and sex hormone-binding globulin. These two plasma proteins bind the glucocorticoids and the sex steroids (androgens and estrogens), respectively. Through a combination of molecular biological, biochemical, and physiological approaches, Professor Hammond and his trainees, have contributed new information about how these steroid-binding proteins are produced and function with respect to normal development and aging, and their involvement in disease processes.

         In recognition of his contributions to our understanding of extracellular steroid-binding proteins, Professor Hammond received the Society for Endocrinology International Medal in 2105. He has published more than 250 scientific articles and reviews; held several patents and has collaborated with the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries. In his administrative roles, Professor Hammond has contributed broadly to the scientific community as a mentor, peer reviewer and consultant, advancing science policy nationally and internationally. Dr. Hammond retired in 2020 and is a Professor Emeritus at UBC.