Holly A Ingraham, PhD

NIH_BioSketch_2025: Ingraham.pdf

Personal Bio:

I was born in Ukiah, California, where my father worked for the Masonite Lumber Co., and my mother worked as a social worker for Mendocino County. Before landing in the East Bay, I briefly experienced the Deep South in Laurel, Mississippi, where images of a segregated society, severe poverty for some, and the turmoil associated with federally mandated desegregation stood out.

Those who devote their lives to creative pursuits are often inspired by a single person or event. Mine came from an outstanding 10th-grade biology teacher, Mr. Jones, who introduced me to DNA at Ygnacio Valley, a public high school. An 1890 Bausch & Lomb microscope also came into my possession when I was ten years old, after being shipped west from Worcester, Massachusetts, by my great-grandfather. I picked it up and began exploring the biological world of Northern California, never to stop.

However, sporadic events are not enough to support a lifetime of curiosity and discovery. That support would come from the State of California through an amazing and accessible public education system beginning at UCSD, and from the National Institutes of Health, which has supported curiosity-driven discovery research as an engine for improving our health and well-being. Unwavering personal support also comes from my husband, family, and mentors, who provide the personal strength and resiliency needed to overcome moments of disappointment, insecurity, and self-doubt. I thoroughly enjoy my life as a scientist and remain addicted to the rare experimental successes sprinkled among the many failures inherent in the scientific process. Please see my Q&A session in Neuron (11/23) for more insight into how I view the world.

Scientific Bio:

Holly A. Ingraham, Ph.D., is the Herzstein Endowed Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF. Her research focuses on sex differences and hormone-responsive nodes in the brain and peripheral tissues that regulate metabolic, skeletal, and gut physiology in females. Through question-driven basic science, Ingraham seeks to uncover the molecular mechanisms underlying adaptive responses throughout the female lifespan; to understand how hormonal fluctuations affect women’s health. Ingraham’s innovative and multi-dimensional work has illuminated basic molecular mechanisms that impact female physiology, going beyond the reproductive system. 

During her postdoctoral work in the Rosenfeld lab at UCSD, she was the driving force behind identifying Pit-1, one of the first tissue-specific regulators and a founding member of the POU transcription factor family. At UCSF, Ingraham demonstrated that the nuclear receptor SF-1 is a key developmental factor in establishing gonadal sex differences by regulating the peptide hormone anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH). Using biochemical and structural studies, her lab went on to identify phospholipids as ligands for SF-1 (LRH-1) and further demonstrated the in vivo impact of SUMOylation of these receptors in endocrine organs and metabolic tissues. 

Ingraham’s more recent work has defined molecular pathways that control female physiology. Her group provided a mechanistic understanding of the preovulatory activity spike, underscoring the impact of estrogen in counteracting metabolic decline. Her high-impact studies focused on brain-body physiology during distinct female life stages have been featured in The New York Times Science Section (October 26, 2021) and the NIH Director’s Blog (August 1, 2024). Ingraham has chaired and served on numerous NIH review panels and scientific advisory boards. Her long-standing dedication to understanding basic female physiology has led to numerous distinguished lectureships and public forums on women’s health. She is also the founder of a biotech venture focused on alleviating age-related frailty and skeletal decline. Ingraham is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She earned her Ph.D. from Revelle College at the University of California, San Diego.

In partnership with San Francisco State University, Ingraham directs the UCSF IRACDA Scholars Program with Dr. Ray Esquerra (SFSU and Ms. Anne Sufka (Coordinator) to broaden opportunities for those seeking to enter the nation's biomedical enterprise. Our efforts, along with generous funding from NIGMS and the UCSF School of Medicine, provide career development programming for a cohort of 12 postdoctoral fellows.