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Jordi Folch-Pi Memorial Award for 1999

Dr. Eric Murphy

Dr. Eric Murphy

Dr. Eric J. Murphy was the winner of the 1999 Jordi-Folch-Pi Memorial Award. The major emphasis of Dr. Murphy's research is to understand how fatty acids enter and are metabolized in the brain. His research spans the fields of lipid neurochemistry to analytical lipid chemistry to the nutritional aspects of dietary lipids and their impact on the CNS function. He continues the quest of his mentor in understanding the role of plasmalogens in brain lipid-mediated signal transduction. His work on fatty acid binding proteins (FABP) was the first demonstration that a FABP expressed in the brain can influence brain fatty acid uptake and subsequent fatty acid targeting to specific lipid pools. He continues to work on the impact of alpha-synuclein, a protein associated with a number of neurodegenerative diseases, on brain lipid metabolism and downstream events such as neuroinflammation. His recent work has demonstrated a significant impact of alpha-synuclein on brain arachidonic acid metabolism and that this protein plays a key role in astrocyte lipid metabolism and in controlling microglial activation. He continues his work in the area of brain n-3 fatty acid metabolism to understand the importance of dietary n-3 fatty acid source on brain n-3 fatty acid accretion and downstream function. Dr. Murphy received his B.A. (1984) in History and in Biology from Hastings College, in Hastings, Nebraska. He was awarded his Ph.D. (1989) in biochemistry with an emphasis in lipid neurochemistry at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio working under the guidance of his mentor Dr. Lloyd A. Horrocks. He continued his training with Dr. Horrocks as a postdoctoral fellow in the area of neurotrauma and then went on to train with Dr. Friedhelm Schroeder at Texas A & M University working on the impact that FABP have on lipid metabolism. Dr. Murphy served as a National Research Council Senior Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Stanley I. Rapoport at the National Institute on Aging where he studied phospholipid metabolism in neurodegenerative diseases and the use of kinetic modeling to understand brain lipid metabolism. Currently, Dr. Murphy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Therapeutics at the University of North Dakota. His research has been supported by NIH-NINDS, NIH-NCRR, American Heart Association and the Myelin Project.