biology

Marion Sewer

Marion Sewer is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Marion Sewer rather than just read about it. In short: 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 stero…

Key takeaways

Marion Sewer belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Marion Sewer to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Marion Sewer from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

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. She was raised in Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands. 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. She then pursued further training as a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University in the laboratory of Michael R. Waterman Archived 2018-06-15 at the Wayback Machine, where she studied transcriptional regulation of P450 enzymes with support from a UNCF/Merck Postdoctoral Scholarship.

Career

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 received tenure in 2008 before moving to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 2009, where she rose to the rank of full professor in 2015. In addition to teaching pharmacology, she led a lab at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences researching how lipid metabolism is regulated and how this affects cells. 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. Sewer was very active in the scientific community; she was a member of the editorial boards of Molecular Endocrinology and Steroids and served on numerous committees, including the Mentoring Committee of Women in Endocrinology, the Publications Committee of the Endocrine Society, and the Minority Affairs Committees of the Endocrine Society and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). She co-founded and helped lead grant writing workshops and a mentorship program through the ASBMB to help advance the careers of underrepresented minority scientists. Her leadership roles included serving as Deputy Chair for the ASBMB Minority Affairs Committee (MAC) and associate director at UCSD's Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) program, which supports underrepresented minority postdoctoral fellows. She also served on NIH study sections on Training and Workforce development and Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology and was secretary/treasurer of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET)'s Drug Metabolism Division.

Honors and awards Undergraduate Minority Access to Research Careers Scholarship, 1991-1993 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship, 1993-1998 UNCF/Merck Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1998-2000 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Travel Award, 2000 Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scientist Award, 2002 National Science Foundation Career Development Award, 2004 Emory University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2013 The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) established The Marion B. Sewer Distinguished Scholarship for Undergraduates in her honor to financially support undergraduate biochemistry and molecular biology students committed to increasing diversity in science.

Selected publications "Diversity and Inclusion Matters: Where do we go from here?". www.asbmb.org. Retrieved 2018-05-19. "Minority Affairs: Overcoming impostor syndrome". www.asbmb.org. Retrieved 2018-05-19. Urs, Aarti N.; Dammer, Eric; Kelly, Samuel; Wang, Elaine; Merrill, Alfred H.; Sewer, Marion B. (February 2007). "Steroidogenic factor-1 is a sphingolipid binding protein". Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. 265–266: 174–178. doi:10.1016/j.mce.2006.12.016. ISSN 0303-7207. PMC 1850975. PMID 17196738. Sewer, Marion B.; Waterman, Michael R. (2003-03-07). "cAMP-dependent Protein Kinase Enhances CYP17 Transcription via MKP-1 Activation in H295R Human Adrenocortical Cells". Journal of Biological Chemistry. 278 (10): 8106–8111. doi:10.1074/jbc.M210264200. ISSN 0021-9258. PMID 12506119. Sewer, Marion B.; Nguyen, Viet Q.; Huang, Ching-Jung; Tucker, Philip W.; Kagawa, Norio; Waterman, Michael R. (April 2002). "Transcriptional Activation of Human CYP17 in H295R Adrenocortical Cells Depends on Complex Formation among p54nrb/NonO, Protein-Associated Splicing Factor, and SF-1, a Complex That Also Participates in Repression of Transcription". Endocrinology. 143 (4): 1280–1290. doi:10.1210/endo.143.4.8748. ISSN 0013-7227. PMID 11897684.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Marion Sewer

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Marion Sewer claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Marion Sewer before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Marion Sewer ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Marion Sewer

In research: Marion Sewer appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Marion Sewer in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Marion Sewer is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1972 births, 2016 deaths, 21st-century American women, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Marion Sewer outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Marion Sewer” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Marion Sewer in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Marion Sewer means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Marion Sewer out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Marion Sewer in simple terms?

Why does Marion Sewer matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Marion Sewer?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Marion Sewer.