Rate My Professor Blake Hill

Blake Hill, PhD, serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, a position he assumed in 2024. Prior to this, he was faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin since 2012, where he pursued translational applications of his research, and at Johns Hopkins University from 2000, leading the design and creation of the university-wide Nuclear Magnetic Resonance facility. His postdoctoral training in protein design and engineering occurred at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, supported by NIH and George W. Raiziss fellowships. Hill earned his PhD in Biophysical Chemistry from Yale University in 1995 as a Frederick W. and Elsie L. Heyl graduate fellow, a bachelor's degree from Kalamazoo College, and earlier worked at a major pharmaceutical company developing in vitro and in vivo models for oral bioavailability of peptide drugs.

Hill's research investigates protein regulation of mitochondrial homeostasis in health and disease, focusing on fission and fusion machinery including Drp1, Fis1, and Bcl-2 family proteins, as well as protein-membrane interactions and amphitropism. His lab employs x-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, genetic engineering, and high-throughput screening across yeast, C. elegans, and mammalian models to uncover mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration, cardiomyopathies, cancer, and cell death, while developing small molecule tools for therapeutic intervention. Key publications include 'Mitochondrial fission proteins regulate programmed cell death in yeast' (Genes & Development, 2004), 'Direct binding of the dynamin-like GTPase, Dnm1, to mitochondrial dynamics protein Fis1 is negatively regulated by the Fis1 N-terminal arm' (Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2007), 'A lethal de novo mutation in the middle domain of the dynamin-related GTPase Drp1 impairs higher-order assembly and mitochondrial division' (Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2010), 'NMR identification of a conserved Drp1 cardiolipin-binding site essential for mitochondrial division' (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021), and 'Human Fis1 directly interacts with Drp1 in an evolutionarily conserved manner to promote mitochondrial fission' (Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2023). He serves on the Journal of Biological Chemistry Editorial Board and national scientific society committees including Ethics, Financial, and Governing. As chair, Hill advances Pharmaceutical Genomics and molecular systems toxicology programs addressing climate-related health issues through campus partnerships.