B.A, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Ph.D., Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of California, Davis


An overarching mission of the USDA is to improve our understanding of how diet and nutrition interact with an individuals’ metabolism to obtain and maintain optimal health.    Under this umbrella, the research focus of the Newman laboratory is exploring the interactions of dietary lipids, lipid transport and metabolism as they pertain to obesity and complications of obesity, including chronic inflammation and cardiovascular disease. At the heart of this research is a desire to fundamentally understand whether or not the fine tuning of an individuals’ dietary lipid intake can result in improvements in body weight and general health beyond those recommended to the general population by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.   To achieve this we are exploring a series of questions in a variety of ways:

1. How does the composition of dietary lipids affect lipoprotein particle structure?
2. How do compositional changes in the lipoproteins lipids influence tissue metabolism?
3. What role do lipases and esterases play in the exposure of the periphery to lipoprotein associated “bioactive” lipids?
4. How do dietary lipids impact inflammatory process associated with obesity?
5. Does the inter-individual variability in diet-responsive lipid metabolism hold information that can be used to identify populations with an elevated risk of diet-induced disease?

Specifically, the group is developing tools for the routine use of targeted metabolomic profiling to address questions relating to the impact of diet and dietary components on human health and obesity.  This approach is hinged upon the idea that one powerful means of understanding the body is to measure how factors, such as nutrition and disease, effect the production, distribution and elimination of the chemical building blocks, fuel, waste, and regulatory molecules that are used to direct, tune, and modulate critical bodily functions.  By narrowing our focus to target metabolic profiles of compounds with known function within related metabolic pathways, the changes we observe in metabolite patterns can be interpreted with respect to changes in underlying cellular processes.  Specifically, our efforts have focused on the impact that the content and composition of dietary lipid have on the levels of lipid metabolites that regulate cellular growth, inflammation, and blood pressure.  Most recently, we have begun to refine these tools and apply them to questions relating to the obesity problem associated with a “Western” diet, and have are designing novel experiments to ask how differences in individual responses to dietary lipids might manifest in different risks for obesity and health complications associated with the overweight state. 

• Newman, J. W., Vedder, J., Jarman, W. M. and Chang, R. R. A method for the determination of environmental contaminants in living marine mammals using microscale samples of blubber and blood. Chemosphere 1994;28: 1795-1805.
• Hunter, C. L., Stephenson, M. D., Tjeerdema, R. S., Crosby, D. G., Ichikawa, G. S., Goetzl, J. D., Paulson, K. M., Crane, D. B., Martin, M. and Newman, J. W. Contaminants in oysters in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 1995;30: 646-654.
• Beckmen, K. B., Lowenstine, L. J., Newman, J., Hill, J., Hanni, K. and Gerber, J. Clinical and pathological characterization of northern elephant seal skin disease. J. Wildlife Dis. 1997;33:438-449.
• Fairey, R., Taberski, K., Lamerdin, S., Johnson, E., Clark, R. P., Downing, J. W., Newman, J. and Petreas, M. Organochlorines and other environmental contaminants in muscle tissues of sportfish collected from San Francisco Bay. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 1997;34: 1058-1071.
• Anderson, B. S., Hunt, J. W., Phillips, B. M., Tudor, S., Fairey, R., Newman, J., Puckett, H. M., Stephenson, M., Long, E. R. and Tjeerdema, R. S. Comparison of marine sediment toxicity test protocols for the amphipod Rhepoxynius abronius and the polychaete worm Nereis (Neanthes) arenaceodentata. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 1998;17:859-866.
• Fairey, R., Roberts, C., Jacobi, M., Lamerdin, S., Clark, R., Downing, J., Long, E., Hunt, J., Anderson, B., Newman, J., Tjeerdema, R., Stephenson, M. and Wilson, C. Assessment of sediment toxicity and chemical concentrations in the San Diego Bay Region, California, USA. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 1998;17:1570-1581.
• Morisseau, C., Du, G., Newman, J. W. and Hammock, B. D. Mechanism of mammalian soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibition by chalcone oxide derivatives. Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 1998;356:214-228.
• Newman, J. W., Becker, J. S., Blondina, G. and Tjeerdema, R. S. Quantitation of Aroclors using congener specific results. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 1998;17:2159-2167.
• Greene, J. F., Williamson, K. C., Newman, J. W., Morisseau, C. and Hammock, B. D. Metabolism of monoepoxides of methyl linoleate: bioactivation and detoxification. Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 2000;376:420-432.
• Greene, J. F., Newman, J. W., Williamson, K. C. and Hammock, B. D. Toxicity of epoxy fatty acids and related compounds to cells expressing human soluble epoxide hydrolase. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 2000;13:217-226.
• Morisseau, C., Beetham, J. K., Pinot, F., Debernard, S., Newman, J. W. and Hammock, B. D. Cress and potato soluble epoxide hydrolases: Purification, biochemical characterization, and comparison to mammalian enzymes. Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 2000;378:321-332.
• Yu, Z., Xu, F., Huse, L. M., Morisseau, C., Draper, A. J., Newman, J. W., Parker, C., Graham, L., Engler, M. M., Hammock, B. D., Zeldin, D. C. and Kroetz, D. L. Soluble epoxide hydrolase regulates hydrolysis of vasoactive epoxyeicosatrienoic acids. Circ. Res. 2000;87:992-998.
• Newman, J. W., Denton, D. L., Morisseau, C., Koger, C. S., Wheelock, C. E., Hinton, D. E. and Hammock, B. D. Evaluation of fish models of soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibition. Environ Health Persp. 2001;109:61-66.
• Anderson, B. S., Hunt, J. W., Phillips, B. M., Fairey, R., Puckett, H. M., Stephenson, M., Taberski, K., Newman, J. and Tjeerdema, R. S. Influence of sample manipulation on contaminant flux and toxicity at the sediment-water interface. Mar. Environ. Res. April, 2001. 51:191-211.
• Slim, R., Hammock, B. D., Toborek, M., Robertson, L. W., Newman, J. W., Morisseau, C. H. P., Watkins, B. A., Saraswathi, V. and Hennig, B. The role of methyl-linoleic acid epoxide and diol metabolites in the amplified toxicity of linoleic acid and polychlorinated biphenyls to vascular endothelial cells. Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol. 2001;171:184-193.
• Morisseau, C., Newman, J. W., Dowdy, D. L., Goodrow, M. H. and Hammock, B. D. Inhibition of microsomal epoxide hydrolases by ureas, amides and amines. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 2001;14:409-415.
• Hunt, J. W., Anderson, B. S., Phillips, B. M., Newman, J., Tjeerdema, R. S., Fairey, R., Puckett, H. M., Stephenson, M., Smith, R. W. and Wilson, C. J. Evaluation and use of sediment toxicity reference sites for statistical comparisons in regional assessments. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2001;20:1266-1275.
• Newman, J. W. and Hammock, B. D. Optimized thiol derivatizing reagent for the mass spectral analysis of disubstituted epoxy fatty acids. J Chromatogr A. 2001;925:223-40.
• Watkins, S.M., Hammock, B. D., Newman, J. W. and German, J. B. Individual metabolism should guide agriculture toward foods for improved health and nutrition. Am J Clin Nutr. 2001;74:283-6.
• Morisseau, C., Goodrow, M. H., Newman, J. W., Wheelock, C. E., Dowdy, D. L. and Hammock, B. D. Structural refinement of inhibitors of urea-based soluble epoxide hydrolase. Biochem. Pharmacol. 2002;63:1599-1608.
• Wheelock, C. E., Baumgartner, T. A., Newman, J. W., Wolfe, M. F. and Tjeerdema, R. S. Effect of nutritional state on Hsp60 levels in the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis following toxicant exposure. Aquatic Toxicol. 2002;61:89-93.
• Newman, J. W., Watanabe, T. and Hammock, B. D. The simultaneous quantification of cytochrome P450 dependent linoleate and arachidonate metabolites in urine by HPLC-MS/MS. J Lipid Res. 2002;43:1563-1578.
• Newman, J. W., Morisseau, C., Harris, T. R. and Hammock, B. D. The soluble epoxide hydrolase encoded by EPXH2 is a bifunctional enzyme with novel lipid phosphate phosphatase activity. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA. 2003;100:1558-63.
• Watanabe, T., Morisseau, C., Newman, J. W. and Hammock, B. D. In vitro metabolism of the mammalian soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibitor 1-cyclohexyl-3-dodecyl-urea. Drug Metab. Dispos. 2003;31: 846-853.
• Koivunen, M. E., Morisseau, C., Newman, J. W., Horwath, W. R. and Hammock, B. D. Purification and characterization of a methylene urea-hydrolyzing enzyme from Rhizobium radiobacter (Agrobacterium tumefaciens). Soil Biol. Biochem. 2003;35: 1433-1442.
• Viswanathan, S., Hammock, B. D., Newman, J. W., Meerarani, P., Toborek, M. and Hennig, B. Involvement of CYP 2C9 in mediating the proinflammatory effects of linoleic acid in vascular endothelial cells. J. Am. Coll. Nutr. 2003;22:502-510.
• Sather, P. J., Newman, J. W. and Ikonomou, M. G. Congener-based Aroclor quantification and speciation techniques: A comparison of the strengths, weaknesses, and proper use of two alternative approaches. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2003;37: 5678-5686.
• DuTeaux, S. B., Newman, J. W., Morisseau, C., Fairbairn, E. A., Jelks, K., Hammock, B. D. and Miller, M. G. Epoxide hydrolases in the rat epididymis: Possible roles in xenobiotic and endogenous fatty acid metabolism. Toxicol. Sci. 2004;78: 187-195.
• Zhao, X., Yammamoto, T., Newman, J. W., Kim, I-H., Watanabe, T., Hammock, B. D., Stewart, J., Pollock, J. S., Pollock, D. M. and Imig, J. D. Soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibition protects the kidney from hypertension-induced damage. J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 2004;15:1244-1253.
• Dey, A., Williams, R.S., Pollock, D.M., Stepp, D.W., Newman, J.W., Hammock, B.D. and Imig, J.D. Altered kidney CYP2C and cyclooxygenase-2 levels are associated with obesity-related albuminuria. Obes Res 2004;12:1278-89.
• Seubert, J., Yang, B., Bradbury, A., Graves, J., Miller, L., Gabel, S., Gooch, R., Foley, J., Newman, J., Mao, L., Rockman, H. A., Hammock, B. D., Murphy, E. and Zeldin, D. C. Enhanced postischemic functional recovery in CYP2J2 transgenic hearts involves mitochondrial ATP-sensitive K channels and p42/p44 MAPK pathway. Circ Res 2004;95:506-14.
• Newman, J. W., Stok, J. E., Vidal, J. D., Corbin, C. J., Huang, Q., Hammock, B. D. and Conley, A. J. Cytochrome p450-dependent lipid metabolism in preovulatory follicles. Endocrinology 2004;145:5097-105.
• Newman, J. W., Morisseau, C. and Hammock, B. D. Epoxide hydrolases: Their roles and interactions with lipid metabolism. Prog. Lipid Res. Available online 25 January 2005.