1500 E. Medical Center Drive, 2301 MSRB III
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-5632
Available to mentor
Dr. Isom is the Maurice H. Seevers Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, and Professor of Neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School. She received her PhD in Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and then trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. William A. Catterall at the University of Washington. Dr. Isom served as Director of the Program in Biomedical Sciences and Assistant Dean for Graduate Education in the University of Michigan Medical School from 2008-2014. In 2014 she was appointed Interim Chair of Pharmacology. In 2015, following a national search, she was appointed Chair of Pharmacology. From 2016-2019 she served as elected Chair of the Endowment for Basic Sciences (EBS). She serves on many institutional committees including as an elected member of the Medical School Executive Committee.
Dr. Isom’s research program at the University of Michigan focuses on voltage-gated sodium channel function and the roles of sodium channel gene variants in developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (DEE), including Dravet syndrome. Her lab investigates SCN1A, SCN1B, and SCN8A DEE variants in mouse models and in human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) neurons and cardiac myocytes. Dr. Isom showed, in collaboration with Dr. Jack Parent, that the high risk of SUDEP in Dravet syndrome may result from a predisposition to cardiac arrhythmias in addition to neuronal hyperexcitability, reflecting haploinsufficiency of SCN1A in heart and brain and the resulting compensatory overexpression of other sodium channel genes in those tissues. Their work predicted cardiac abnormalities in a Dravet syndrome patient prior to clinical evaluation. Most recently, she has collaborated with Stoke Therapeutics to develop the first antisense oligonucleotide precision therapeutic agent for Dravet syndrome, which is now in clinical trials. Dr. Isom is Co-PI of the NINDS-funded EpiMVP Center Without Walls.
Dr. Isom serves as PI of the NIH funded, Pharmacological Sciences Training Program T32 grant. She co-chairs the Dravet Syndrome Foundation Scientific Advisory Board, served a three-year term on the Board of the American Epilepsy Society (AES) and now co-chairs the AES/NINDS Benchmarks Committee, and serves on the International League Against Epilepsy ILAE) Translational Task Force, the Epilepsy Action Network, and Partners Against Mortality in Epilepsy (PAME). She chaired the NIH ESTA study section, and serves on editorial boards of scientific journals. She has received awards for research and mentoring, including her current NINDS Javits R37 MERIT award and the University of Michigan Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and a Fellow of the American Epilepsy Society. Dr. Isom was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021 and received the American Epilepsy Society Basic Science Award in 2022.
Isom Lab Website Department of Pharmacology, University of Michigan
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PostdoctoralUniversity of Washington, Pharmacology
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PhDVanderbilt University, Nashville, 1987
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B.A.Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, 1982
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Center MemberPrecision Health Initiative
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Center MemberCaswell Diabetes Institute
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Center MemberSamuel and Jean Frankel Cardiovascular Center
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Center MemberCenter for Cell Plasticity and Organ Design
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Center MemberBiosciences Initiative
Physiology and pharmacology of voltage-gated sodium channels; role of sodium channel variants in genetic epilepsy, cardiac arrhythmia and SUDEP.
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Yuan Y, Lopez-Santiago L, Denomme N, Chen C, O'Malley HA, Hodges SL, Ji S, Han Z, Christiansen A, Isom LL. Brain, 2024 Apr 4; 147 (4): 1231 - 1246.Journal ArticleAntisense oligonucleotides restore excitability, GABA signalling and sodium current density in a Dravet syndrome model.
DOI:10.1093/brain/awad349 PMID: 37812817 -
Raza D, Siddiqui S, Kalla I, Mondragon R, Olaiya O, Anderson E, Isom LL, Berenfeld O, Anumonwo JM. Biophysical Journal, 2024 Feb; 123 (3): 388aJournal ArticleDlg1 gene expression and sexual dimorphism in regulation of heart rate and its variability in a murine model
DOI:10.1016/j.bpj.2023.11.2358 -
Tidball AM, Niu W, Ma Q, Takla TN, Walker JC, Margolis JL, Mojica-Perez SP, Sudyk R, Deng L, Moore SJ, Chopra R, Shakkottai VG, Murphy GG, Yuan Y, Isom LL, Li JZ, Parent JM. Stem Cell Reports, 2023 Dec 12; 18 (12): 2498 - 2514.Journal ArticleDeriving early single-rosette brain organoids from human pluripotent stem cells.
DOI:10.1016/j.stemcr.2023.10.020 PMID: 37995702 -
Hull JM, Denomme N, Yuan Y, Booth V, Isom LL. Sci Rep, 2023 Jun 1; 13 (1): 8887Journal ArticleHeterogeneity of voltage gated sodium current density between neurons decorrelates spiking and suppresses network synchronization in Scn1b null mouse models.
DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-36036-0 PMID: 37264112 -
Ramos-Mondragón R, Lozhkin A, Vendrov AE, Runge MS, Isom LL, Madamanchi NR. Antioxidants (Basel), 2023 Oct 6; 12 (10):Journal ArticleNADPH Oxidases and Oxidative Stress in the Pathogenesis of Atrial Fibrillation.
DOI:10.3390/antiox12101833 PMID: 37891912 -
Gschwind T, Zeine A, Raikov I, Markowitz JE, Gillis WF, Felong S, Isom LL, Datta SR, Soltesz I. Neuron, 2023 May 3; 111 (9): 1440 - 1452.e5.Journal ArticleHidden behavioral fingerprints in epilepsy.
DOI:10.1016/j.neuron.2023.02.003 PMID: 36841241 -
Liu H, Caballero-Florán RN, Hergenreder T, Yang T, Hull JM, Pan G, Li R, Veling MW, Isom LL, Kwan KY, Huang ZJ, Fuerst PG, Jenkins PM, Ye B. PLoS Biol, 2023 Apr; 21 (4): e3002078Journal ArticleDSCAM gene triplication causes excessive GABAergic synapses in the neocortex in Down syndrome mouse models.
DOI:10.1371/journal.pbio.3002078 PMID: 37079499 -
Chen C, Ziobro J, Robinson-Cooper L, Hodges SL, Chen Y, Edokobi N, Lopez-Santiago L, Habig K, Moore C, Minton J, Bramson S, Scheuing C, Daddo N, Štěrbová K, Weckhuysen S, Parent JM, Isom LL. Brain Commun, 2023 5 (6): fcad283Journal ArticleEpilepsy and sudden unexpected death in epilepsy in a mouse model of human SCN1B-linked developmental and epileptic encephalopathy.
DOI:10.1093/braincomms/fcad283 PMID: 38425576