H. Alex Brown grew up on the east coast of Florida close to the Kennedy Space Center. He attended Wake Forest University, received his Bachelor of Science degree with highest honors from Florida Institute of Technology and a masters degree from Syracuse University. He earned his Ph.D. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992 (with Ken Harden). He was a postdoctoral fellow in the area of G protein mediated cellular signaling (with Paul Sternweis) at the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where he acquired expertise in the area of protein purification and reconstitution biochemistry. It was at this time that he developed the assays for and identified several regulators of phospholipase D. In 1996 Dr. Brown began his independent career in the Department of Pharmacology at Cornell University in Ithaca NY.  While at Cornell, Dr. Brown continued studies in the field of cellular signaling and in 1997 was named a Sidney Kimmel Scholar for Cancer Research Young Investigator. During this period he also began work that initiated the field of computational lipidomics.  This endeavor combined analytical chemistry and mass spectrometry-based approaches with the emerging discipline of systems biology to allow complex analysis of substrate-product relationships and lipid profiling of cells, tissues, and whole organisms. In 2001 Dr. Brown was invited to integrate this emerging technology into the Large Scale Collaborative initiative project, The Alliance for Cellular Signaling (AfCS) under the direction of Dr. Alfred Gilman.  In 2002 Dr. Brown arrived at Vanderbilt University where he was appointed Ingram Associate Professor in Cancer Research in Pharmacology. In 2003 Dr. Brown helped to launch another Glue Grant, The LIPID MAPS Initiative.    The LIPID MAPS initiative is charged with defining the lipome of mammalian macrophages and has developed new nomenclature and classifications for lipids.

Dr. Brown is a Professor of Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Chemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He has numerous publications in the areas of cellular signaling, lipid biochemistry, and mass spectrometry. He has trained a number of postdoctoral fellows and graduate students as well as being the course director of Receptor Pharmacology (PHAR 324). He serves on a number of medical school and university committees as well as on many dissertation committees for both Medical School Graduate Programs as well as in the Chemistry Graduate Program (where he holds a faculty appointment).  Dr. Brown has organized and/or co-chaired a number of international meetings in lipid biochemistry.  He serves as associate editor for Molecular Pharmacology, on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, as well as a reviewer for several journals in mass spectrometry and biochemistry.  He has reviewed grant research proposals for the National Institutes of Health, the Human Frontiers Scientific Program and several private organizations with disease focus.  In 2007 Dr. Brown served as the Editor of the three volume series on LIPIDOMICS and BIOACTIVE LIPIDS for METHODS IN ENZYMOLOGY.  He is currently a member of the ASBMB Publications Committee