Professor
Endowed Title: [1995] Dallas Heart Ball Chair in Cardiology Research; Philip O'Bryan Montgomery Jr., M.D., Distinguished Chair in Developmental Biology; Eugene McDermott Distinguished Chair for the Study of Human Growth and Development
Department: Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth & Development, Internal Medicine, Molecular Genetics
Graduate Programs: Genetics and Development
Helen H. Hobbs, M.D. is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Professor of Internal Medicine and Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She was born in Boston and obtained her undergraduate degree in human biology from Stanford University prior to attending Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. After completing an internship in internal medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, she moved to Dallas, Texas where she finished her clinical training and served as chief resident in internal medicine at Parkland Memorial Hospital. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Drs. Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein before joining the faculty of UT Southwestern in 1987. She is Director of the McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, which serves as the Center for Human Genetics at UT Southwestern. She is also Director of the Dallas Heart Study, a longitudinal, multiethnic, population-based study of Dallas County. Her work focuses on defining the genetic determinants of plasma lipoprotein levels and cardiovascular risk. Most recently, she has focused on the genetic susceptibility to fatty liver disease. She is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. She received the the American Heart Association Clinical Research Prize, the Heinrich Wieland Prize and the 2007 American Heart Association Distinguished Scientist Award.
| Medical School | Case Western Reserve University (1979) |
| Internship | Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center (1980), Internal Medicine |
| Residency | Parkland Health & Hospital System (1983), Internal Medicine |
| Fellowship | Parkland Health & Hospital System (1986), Endocrinology & Metabolism |
Featured Publications
Human fatty liver disease: old questions and new insights.
Cohen JC, Horton JD, Hobbs HH Science 2011 Jun 332 6037 1519-23
A feed-forward loop amplifies nutritional regulation of PNPLA3.
Huang Y, He S, Li JZ, Seo YK, Osborne TF, Cohen JC, Hobbs HH Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2010 Apr 107 17 7892-7
Genetic variation in PNPLA3 confers susceptibility to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
Romeo S, Kozlitina J, Xing C, Pertsemlidis A, Cox D, Pennacchio LA, Boerwinkle E, Cohen JC, Hobbs HH Nat. Genet. 2008 Dec 40 12 1461-5
Sequence Variations in PCSK9, Low LDL, and Protection against Coronary Heart Disease.
Jonathan C. Cohen, Ph.D., Eric Boerwinkle, Ph.D., Thomas H. Mosley, Jr., Ph.D., and Helen H. Hobbs, M.D. New England Journal of Medicine March 2006 354 1310-1312