Ronald Evans Email Address

Professor

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to fundamental discoveries in the life sciences, the improvement of human health and the training of future generations of researchers. Jonas Salk, M.D., whose polio vaccine all but eradicated the crippling disease poliomyelitis in 1955, opened the Institute in 1965 with a gift of land from the City of San Diego and the financial support of the March of Dimes.

I am an authority on hormones, both their normal activities and their roles in disease. A major achievement in my lab was the discovery of a large family of molecules, called nuclear hormone receptors, which respond to various steroid hormones, vitamin A and thyroid hormones. These hormones help control sugar, salt, calcium and fat metabolism, affecting our daily health as well as treatment of disease. The receptors we discovered are primary targets in the treatment of breast cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer and leukemia, as well as osteoporosis and asthma. In addition, our studies led to a new class of PPAR delta drugs called exercise mimetics, which promote the benefits of fitness without the need to train. Exercise mimetics represent an important advance in addressing problems arising from excess weight and obesity, such as frailty, muscular dystrophy and type 2 diabetes. https://www.salk.edu/scientist/ronald-evans/