Heidi E. Hamm, PhD

Dr. Hamm is the Aileen M. Lange and Annie Mary Lyle Professor of Cardiovascular Research, and professor of Pharmacology, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, and Orthopedics at Vanderbilt University.

For 14 years she served as chair of Vanderbilt’s Department of Pharmacology, one of the nation’s top pharmacology departments judged by reputation, citation analysis, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. As chair, Dr. Hamm oversaw an increase in the size of the department, as well as a quintupling of its NIH funding. She is credited with taking the department in new directions, including drug discovery.

Dr. Hamm’s own research has focused on G protein-coupled receptors, which are targeted by more than half of all drugs. She is known internationally for her elegant dissection of G protein structure and receptor activation research and how these biological switches are turned on to mediate downstream effects.

She also discovered that G protein beta gamma subunits directly inhibit secretion by binding to the exocytotic machinery, an important discovery, the significance of which is still being investigated.