Marion Sewer

Marion Sewer (October 28, 1972 – January 28, 2016) was a pharmacologist and professor at the University of California, San Diego's Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences known for her research on steroid hormone biogenesis and her commitment to increasing diversity in science. Much of her research centered around cytochrome P450, a family of enzymes involved in the conversion of cholesterol into steroid hormones. She died unexpectedly at the age of 43 from a pulmonary embolism on January 28, 2016, while traveling through the Detroit airport.

Early life and education Sewer was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands on October 28, 1972. In 1993, she received a bachelor's of science in biochemistry from Spelman College where she participated in research as a Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) scholar.

She went on to earn a PhD in pharmacology from Emory University, for research into the regulation of cytochrome P450 expression and activity in the liver and kidneys in the laboratory of Edward Morgan. This work was supported by a predoctoral fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Sewer joined the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2002, where she studied how cytochrome P450 enzymes regulate the production of steroid hormones.

She discovered that nuclear receptors are targets for a type of lipids called sphingolipids and that specific sphingolipids and phospholipids could act as endogenous (natural) ligands (binding partners) for an important regulator of steroid hormone biosynthesis called steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1). This showed that nuclear lipids could play a previously unknown role in regulating gene expression.

Selected publications