Dr. Ole Isacson is Professor of Neurology (Neuroscience) at Harvard Medical School. He is the Director of the Center for Neuroregeneration Research/ Neuroregeneration Laboratories at McLean Hospital, and an NIH Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence grant awardee. Dr. Isacson is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center and Principal Faculty of Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He received his Medical Bachelor (1984) and Doctor of Medicine (a research doctoral degree in Medical Neurobiology, 1987) from the University of Lund in Sweden. In 1989, after a 2 year postdoctoral fellowship position at Cambridge University, England, Dr. Isacson was recruited to Harvard as an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and there established an independent research laboratory for his work on neuroregeneration. Over the last two decades his original laboratory has grown to an internationally recognized academic research center for Parkinson's disease and related disorders, funded by the NIH, DOD and private foundations. Toward the end of 2010 the Center for Neuroregeneration Research was designated an Institute by McLean Hospital. Dr. Isacson's scientific models and studies of conceptually new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases have resulted in many new findings and clinical trials for Parkinson's and Huntington's disease. He is Editor-In-Chief of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience and past Receiving Editor of the European Journal of Neuroscience (2002-2008) and on the board of numerous scientific journals. He is a founding member and past President of the American Society for Neural Transplantation and Repair, and the past President of the international Cell Transplant Society, CTS (branch of The Transplantation Society, TTS). He serves as a scientific reviewer and advisor to the NIH, DOD and many Parkinson community groups. Dr. Isacson has received several international prizes, research awards and lectureships. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2014. He is author or co-author of over 300 scientific research publications in neuroscience and neurology, and 3 books in his field. 

Prof. Isacson's research center has had an impact on several neurodegenerative disease problems. In the early 1990s his laboratory showed in Parkinson's and Huntington's disease model studies, that the specific neurons most vulnerable to the diseases could be protected from toxic processes, including lesions and energetic metabolic failures (Schumacher et al. 1991, Frim et al. 1994). Work also showed that degenerated neurons in the striatum could be replaced by implanted fetal GABAergic neurons, with restorative functional effects (Hantraye et al. 1992). Such implanted cells could also grow in Huntington patients in an appropriate way (Freeman et al. 2000). While exploring new donor cell sources for therapy, Dr. Isacson's lab was the first to transplant embryonic stem (ES) cells differentiated in cell culture into gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) expressing neurons in animal models in 1995 (Dinsmore et al. 1996). Dr. Isacson's lab was also the first to demonstrate that normal midbrain dopaminergic neurons could develop from uninduced ES cells in 1998 (Deacon et al 1998). This work led to the first demonstration that ES cells could provide functional dopamine neurons to animal models of Parkinson's by Dr. Isacson's research group in 2002 (L.M. Bjorklund et al. 2002). In depth fundamental scientific discovery work in his lab also revealed that many damaged neuronal networks could be anatomically reconnected by fetal or stem cell derived neurons precisely in the patterns seen in developing brains, even when donor cells were from different donor species (Isacson et al. 1995, Isacson and Deacon, 1996, 1997). The specificity of such microscopic reconnections showed that the adult brain retains most of the necessary information to make new synapses and restore brain circuitry (Isacson et al. 1995, Isacson and Deacon, 1996, 1997). For therapeutic applications, this was demonstrated both in animal models and later in the clinic for individual Parkinson patients that in principle, implanted individual neurons could reconstitute the dopamine system long-term (Isacson et al. 1995, Deacon et al. 1997, Mendez et al. 2005, 2008, Cooper et al. 2009, Tsui and Isacson 2012, Hallett et al. 2014). These experiments demonstrated that functional repair is possible using cell therapies, either for trophic preservation or by restituting the neurotransmission. Scientists at the Neuroregeneration Research Institute have also shown that ES and iPS cells can generate the specific dopamine neurons (A9 and A10) that are involved in the degeneration that creates the syndrome of Parkinson's disease (S. Chung et al. 2002, 2005, Cooper et al 2010, 2012a). Innovative axon and synapse regeneration approaches are the focus of experiments in his laboratory. New discoveries demonstrate that ES or induced proliferative stem (iPS) cell derived neurons, including human cells, can reverse deficits in animal models and create functional neurotransmission in the brain's motor circuitry (L.M. Bjorklund et al. 2002,Hedlund et al. 2008, Wernig et al. 2008, Soldner et al. 2009, Hargus et al. 2010, Cooper et al 2010 , Hallett et al. 2015). To achieve practical goals in regenerative medicine for patients with neurological diseases, Dr Isacson's team has also developed novel neural cell sorting methods (Pruszak et al. 2007), genetic engineering and gene therapy (Seo et al. 2007, C.Y. Chung et al. 2007, Hemming et al. 2007,  C.Y. Chung et al. 2009, 2010, Rocha et al. 2015). In the analysis of how certain brain cell populations are vulnerable or resistant to neurodegenerative diseases, Dr. Isacson's group discovered specific molecular profiles of neurons, including iPSC-derived neurons obtained from patients or at-risk cases, that characterize vulnerable cell types. Such experiments provided information for new leads for neuroprotective therapeutics for Parkinson's, Huntington's diseases and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) (C.Y. Chung et al. 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010; Hedlund et al. 2007, 2010, McLean et al. 2011, Hallett et al. 2012, Cooper et al. 2012b, Sanders et al. 2014). Current studies in his laboratory also concentrate on interactions between genetics, immune system, aging and cell biology to provide neurobiological insights and new agents for future therapies (Koprich et al. 2008, C.Y. Chung et al. 2009, Deleidi et al. 2010, 2012, Hallett et al. 2012, Rocha et al. 2015). Important scientific discoveries for neurological and psychiatric diseases made in the Neuroregeneration Research Institute show how brain cell circuitry and synapses previously degenerated can be restored or replaced (Lin et al. 2006, Inoue et al. 2007, Hedlund et al, 2008, Wernig et al 2008, Mendez, Vinuela et al 2008, Cooper et al. 2009, Hargus et al. 2010, Tsui and Isacson 2012, Hallett et al. 2014, Hallett et al. 2015). These scientific accomplishments provide novel technology and biological insights beyond currently available drug therapies for neurological and neurodegenerative diseases.

Penny Hallett, PhD, is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Neuroregeneration Research Institute (NRI). She received her PhD from the University of Manchester, UK, and completed post-doctoral studies at Massachusetts General Hospital, moving in 2006 to McLean Hospital to join the NRI. Dr. Hallett served as an editor for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience from 2009-2017. Since 2017, Dr. Hallett has been an editorial review board member for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience.