Calendar this date, Oct. 10.
The Celebration of the Life and Legacy of UC Davis Distinguished Professor Bruce Hammock, internationally renowned scientist and acclaimed member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will take place at 1 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 10 in California Hall, UC Davis campus.
Pre-registration is underway at https://forms.gle/eRssVnZyVZBV6is9A, announced coordinator UC Davis Distinguished Professor Walter Leal of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, former chair of the Department of Entomology.
Chancellor Gary May will be among the speakers.
Professor Hammock, a member of the UC Davis faculty since 1980, died Monday, Jan. 5, in Davis, at age 78. He held a joint appointment with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.
He was renowned for his chemistry, toxicology, biochemistry, entomology and human health research that led to elected membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors; scores of professional honors and awards; and accolades from administrators, colleagues, researchers, alumni and students.
“Bruce Hammock’s groundbreaking contributions to insect physiology, toxicology, pharmacology, and experimental therapeutics have been recognized internationally, but here at UC Davis we also had the privilege of knowing him firsthand as a dedicated mentor, an outspoken advocate for students and faculty, and a generous and beloved colleague,” Chancellor May said earlier this year.
“I was especially proud to present Bruce with the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award in Innovation as part of the Chancellor’s Innovation Awards in 2020, and to later celebrate his recognition as recipient of the 2024 Graduate Studies Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Mentoring Award,” the chancellor continued. “We are all better for having had Bruce as a member of our community for 46 years. I am deeply grateful for his enduring commitment to our campus, which helped shape who we are today and will continue to impact us in the years to come.”
'We Lost a Legend'
Joanna Chiu, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, said Hammock's passing is a loss for the science community. “We lost a legend," she said. "Bruce will not only be remembered as a uniquely brilliant and extraordinary scientist and thinker, but also a kind and generous individual and a fierce supporter of his mentees and colleagues. We will miss him dearly."
“Bruce was the backbone of the department for decades,” said UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita Lynn Kimsey, who served 34 years as director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. “His lab, students and staff were internationally recognized, coming up with landmark discoveries, including increasing the efficacy of pesticides and understanding the toxic effects, the biochemistry of inflammation, and novel pain treatments, among other things. Despite multiple honors and recognition, Bruce was a humble man, always willing to help and collaborate.”
Said Leal, a close friend and colleague: "I had the privilege of teaching insect physiology with Bruce for 13 years, beginning shortly after I arrived in Davis. He was not only an exceptional scientist but also an outstanding and deeply committed instructor."
Hammock is renowned for co-discovering soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) -- an enzyme in the human body that breaks down regulatory fatty acids -- and for his 50-year research on sEH inhibitors that led to therapeutic drug discoveries targeting such diseases as pain, eye and kidney disease, traumatic brain injury and stroke, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's disease. In 2011, he co-founded EicOsis to fulfill a lifelong commitment to finding safer and more effective ways to treat chronic pain.
35-Year Director of UC Davis Superfund Program
In his research, Hammock explored health risks from pesticides, mycotoxins, other bioterror agents and dietary and environmental chemicals, including microplastics. For 35 years, he directed the UC Davis Superfund Program, a multidisciplinary program funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences that crossed multidisciplines, including engineering, soil and water contamination, toxicology and analytical chemistry. Hammock supported scores of pre- and postdoctoral scholars in interdisciplinary research in five different colleges and graduate groups on campus. For 14 years, he directed an NIH Training Grant in Biotechnology at UC Davis for cross-training in physical and biological sciences.
He was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Award in Agriculture, the Royal Society of Chemistry's Horizon Team Award, and the Bernard Brodie Award in Drug Metabolism from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Hammock was a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and the Entomological Society of America. At UC Davis, he received the Academic Senate's Distinguished Teaching Award, the Faculty Research Lectureship and the Graduate Studies Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Mentoring Award.
Born in Little Rock, Ark.
Born Aug. 13, 1947 in Little Rock, Ark. (his father was a postal worker and his mother was an encyclopedia sales person), Bruce received his bachelor's degree in entomology (with minors in zoology and chemistry) magna cum laude from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1969. He obtained his doctorate in entomology-toxicology from UC Berkeley in 1973 with mentor John Casida.
His career included working as a public health medical officer with the U.S. Army Academy of Health Science, San Antonio, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation, Department of Biology, Northwestern University. He joined the UC Riverside faculty in 1975 and five years later, the UC Davis faculty. At UC Davis, he taught biochemistry, endocrinology, toxicology, and pharmaceutical discovery and development.
Over his nearly five decades at UC Davis, he published more than 1500 research articles. He attained some 80 patents.
'Science Should Be Fun'
Hammock said his No. 1 criteria for selecting scientists in his lab was that they be "curious." He also believed that science should be "fun." Once every summer for nearly a decade, he sponsored water balloon battles on the Briggs Hall lawn, urging other labs to join his lab. Away from the lab, he loved rock-climbing, hiking and kayaking. (See tributes)
For more information, contact Leal at wsleal@ucdavis.edu. Kathy Keatley Garvey (kegarvey@ucdavis.edu), communications specialist, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is collecting images.
Resources:
- Bruce Hammock, Wikipedia
- A Quantum Leap at a Time: In Memory of Bruce D. Hammock, by Walter Leal, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
- In Loving Memory of Bruce Hammock, 1947-2026, published on the Nb4D-CSIC website.
- It All Began with Bruce Hammock's Curiosity, Bug Squad blog