Ison Named Center for Clinical Research Director
Michael Ison, MD, MS, professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and professor of Surgery in the Division of Transplant Surgery has been named director of the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute’s Center for Clinical Research (CCR), effective September 1.
“I am thrilled to join the NUCATS leadership team at a time when the Institute continues to find innovative ways to promote and support clinical and translational research,” says Ison, a member of the NUCATS Institute, the Comprehensive Transplant Center, and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. “There are so many ways to conduct clinical research at Northwestern, and having the opportunity to help investigators accomplish their goals with CCR support will be incredibly rewarding.”
Ison has more than 15 years of experience conducting clinical trials, and nearly 20 years of experience leading epidemiologic studies related to respiratory viruses and post-transplant infections.
I am thrilled to join the NUCATS leadership team at a time when the Institute continues to find innovative ways to promote and support clinical and translational research. There are so many ways to conduct clinical research at Northwestern, and having the opportunity to help investigators accomplish their goals with CCR support will be incredibly rewarding.”
“I am continually impressed with Dr. Ison’s knowledge and am excited that he will bring his vision and energy to CCR,” says NUCATS Director Richard D’Aquila, MD, the Howard Taylor Ricketts, MD, Professor of Medicine and previous CCR director. “Mike’s decades of experience and ability to make complex scientific topics approachable has enabled his remarkable research productivity as well as made him a sought-after communicator by local and national media.”
A highly respected scholar and educator with more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, Ison is currently the principal investigator of five multicenter clinical trials. He has been a user of NUCATS services, particularly the NM Clinical Research Unit infrastructure, and was recently awarded a Rapid-Response Grant to study COVID-19. Ison also led a highly collaborative team across the different regions of the Northwestern Medicine health system to effectively provide expanded access to convalescent plasma for COVID-19 patients, as well as leading other teams in responding to the pandemic with innovative clinical research.
Ison earned his medical degree at the University of South Florida College of Medicine and then completed his internal medicine residency and general internal medicine fellowship at Oregon Health Sciences University. He later completed his master of science in Health Evaluation Sciences and did his infectious diseases fellowship at the University of Virginia. He then undertook additional training in Transplant Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He joined the faculty of the Divisions of Infectious Diseases and Organ Transplantation at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in 2005.
Ison is also a member of the Journal of Infectious Diseases editorial board; a senior editor of Respiratory Viruses, Antiviral Therapy; and associate editor of Transplant Infectious Diseases and the American Journal of Transplantation.
As clinical trials become increasingly challenging due to complexities of study designs, investigators often need support with various components, including deployment and recruitment. “This is where the NUCATS Center for Clinical Research can offer support. Whether its help with identifying potential subjects, speeding the trial to activation and enrollment or facilitating components of the clinical trial, the CCR is an amazing resource,” says Ison. “With new technology and increased capacity, the CCR can aid Northwestern’s clinical research community in thinking outside of the box to develop approaches that expand research opportunities for all investigators.”
