Jon Lomasney, MD

Associate Professor of Pathology and Pharmacology
Feinberg School of Medicine

Research Interests:
Lipids are important regulators of the activity of many proteins including those involved in cardiac, vascular, pulmonary, and neural regulation, yet little is known about the molecular mechanisms mediating these effects.

The laboratory of Jon Lomasney is engaged in a program of basic research to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which lipids act as specific ligands to regulate cellular responses, and to investigate in select areas of cardiovascular disease now aberrations of signaling pathways may play a vital role in the pathogenesis of human disease.

Dr. Lomasney’s lab has used the family of phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase C isoforms as a model to study protein-lipid interactions. Upon stimulation by various hormones these membrane associated enzymes hydrolyze polyphosphoinositides to yield second messengers such diacylglycerol and inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate. These enzymes play important roles in regulating cardiac and neural function. His lab has engineered numerous transgenic and knockout mouse lines for several of the delta isoforms. Currently, they are characterizing the phenotypes of these mice.