Basic Sciences

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Vanderbilt University Assistant Professor of Pharmacology Jerri Rook has been recognized with the 2020 Melvin R. Goodes Prize for Excellence in Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery. Presented by the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, the prize recognizes leading researchers who are developing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

The human cytochrome P450 enzymes are responsible for metabolizing a variety of substances — from lipids (fats) and steroid hormones to drugs and toxic chemicals.

One such enzyme, P450 17A1, generates androstenedione and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), involved in the production of sex hormones. How the enzyme binds to its substrates has remained a mystery until now.

Now in a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, Vsevolod Gurevich, PhD, and colleagues show that a glycine residue at the beginning of the finger loop is critical for the arrestin-GPCR interaction.