Early life and family

Sevanian was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States with his family, settling first in San Francisco and later in the San Fernando Valley

San Fernando Valley

The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...

 (near Los Angeles). Alex Sevanian's father, Ara Sevanian, was a composer and kanonist whose works have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic

Los Angeles Philharmonic

The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...

 and the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, among others.

Career

Sevanian earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from California State University, Northridge

California State University, Northridge

California State University, Northridge is a public university in Northridge, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California, United States....

 and his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He went on to do postdoctoral work at UCLA under James Mead, and worked as an assistant research biochemist in the Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine

Nuclear medicine

In nuclear medicine procedures, elemental radionuclides are combined with other elements to form chemical compounds, or else combined with existing pharmaceutical compounds, to form radiopharmaceuticals. These radiopharmaceuticals, once administered to the patient, can localize to specific organs...

 and Radiation Biology

Radiobiology

Radiobiology , as a field of clinical and basic medical sciences, originated from Leopold Freund's 1896 demonstration of the therapeutic treatment of a hairy mole using a new type of electromagnetic radiation called x-rays, which was discovered 1 year previously by the German physicist, Wilhelm...

. In 1981 Sevanian became one of the founding faculty members of Dr. Paul Hochstein’s Institute for Toxicology at the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 (USC), which specialized in free radical

Radical (chemistry)

Radicals are atoms, molecules, or ions with unpaired electrons on an open shell configuration. Free radicals may have positive, negative, or zero charge...

 and oxidative stress

Oxidative stress

Oxidative stress represents an imbalance between the production and manifestation of reactive oxygen species and a biological system's ability to readily detoxify the reactive intermediates or to repair the resulting damage...

 research. Sevanian was promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor and then to full Professor. The institute merged into the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Toxicology of the School of Pharmacy at USC in the early 1990s, and Sevanian remained there as a Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Toxicology. He also held an appointment as Professor of Pathology in USC’s Keck School of Medicine. In 1988 Sevanian became a founding member of the Oxygen Society (now the Society for Free Radical Biology & Medicine), later serving as Councillor, Secretary General, and finally Treasurer of the International Society for Free Radical Research (SFRR International). Sevanian died from cancer on Feb. 17, 2005.

Research

Sevanian made major contributions to the understanding of phospholipases as repair enzymes for oxidized membrane lipids. He worked to identify specific oxidative mechanisms in atherosclerosis. He researched the effects of lipid peroxidation

Lipid peroxidation

Lipid peroxidation refers to the oxidative degradation of lipids. It is the process in which free radicals "steal" electrons from the lipids in cell membranes, resulting in cell damage. This process proceeds by a free radical chain reaction mechanism...

, oxidative stress, and modified lipoproteins in the progression of cardiovascular disease

Cardiovascular disease

Heart disease or cardiovascular disease are the class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels . While the term technically refers to any disease that affects the cardiovascular system , it is usually used to refer to those related to atherosclerosis...

, seeking ways to convert research findings into therapeutic interventions. Along with his colleagues in the USC Atherosclerosis Research Unit, Sevanian identified a modified low-density lipoprotein

Low density lipoprotein

Low-density lipoprotein is one of the five major groups of lipoproteins, which in order of size, largest to smallest, are chylomicrons, VLDL, IDL, LDL, and HDL, that enable transport of cholesterol within the water-based bloodstream...

(LDL) that contributes to atherosclerosis in humans.