Seminar title: “Genetic Variation in Anti-HIV Drug Activation”
Wednesday, December 2, 2020, from 3:30 – 4:30 via WebEx
https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/join/boc07001
Dr. Bumpus is the Director of the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences and Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Bumpus started her own laboratory at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2010 as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, was promoted to Associate Professor in February 2015, and received Professorship in 2020.
In 2020, she was named director of the department of pharmacology and molecular sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, becoming the first African-American director of a basic science department, and the first Black woman to chair any department, at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
A major thread of Bumpus' research is determining how antiviral drugs used to treat HIV-1 are metabolized and how genetic variations in drug-processing enzymes may impact these drugs' efficacy.
Bumpus has also researched nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Her lab was the first to publish the P450-catalyzed phase 1 and phase 2 metabolic pathways of two nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, rilpivirine and etravirine and was first to characterize the metabolism of the nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor dapivirine. She also studies antivirals that work through mechanisms other than reverse transcriptase inhibition such as the HIV entry inhibitor maraviroc; she found that genetic variants of CYP3A genes could impact its clearance.
Bumpus' lab also found that cytochrome P450 enzymes convert the anti-epileptic valproic acid into byproducts (metabolites) that activate AMPK; they showed that this could reverse the obesity-related problems of fatty liver disease and high blood sugar in mouse models.
For more information, contact: Dr. Xiaobo Zhong at 860-486-3697