Isabelle Reveillaud-Draper earned her PhD. in Biochemistry from the Université Montpellier 2/ Sciences et Techniques, Montpellier, France, studying the structural organization of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins. She then joined Dr. Tom Kornberg's laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, for a post-doctoral position working on Drosophila development. As a research associate at the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto, CA, she pioneered the expression of mammalian genes in transgenic Drosophila (i.e., mutant flies expressing the bovine superoxide dismutase) to facilitate investigations of the free radical theory of aging.
Current projects include:
Dr. Draper’s lab utilizes the fruit fly to expedite the characterization of genes relevant to human cardiac and skeletal muscle physiology and disease, with a specific emphasis on the role of RNA binding proteins (RBPs) and RNA splicing. The laboratory uses a broad array of complementary genetic, molecular, pharmacological and behavioral approaches applicable to the Drosophila model organism. MCRI fly models of muscular dystrophies and heart disease are generated and integrated into translational pipelines established at TMC and other research institutions. These pipelines include invertebrate and vertebrate model organisms, and human cell lines, to facilitate the discovery of novel drug targets and/or candidate therapeutics.
